The girl who wrote in silk, by Kelli Estes

A suggested title from my book club.  The history behind this novel, which alternates between events in the Seattle area during the late 1800s and present day, was unknown to me and enlightening.  When Inara Erickson, great-great-great-granddaughter of shipping magnate Duncan Campbell, inherits his estate, Rothesay, from her Aunt Dahlia, she is on the verge of accepting a prestigious management job with Starbucks.  It will fit her skills as a recent graduate in international business.  Her father, who has had something to do with the job offer, is excited to see his daughter follow his footsteps into the world of commerce and dismayed when she decides, after visiting the property and learning her aunt had hoped she might turn it into a Bed and Breakfast establishment, that she is completely taken with that idea.  Now uncertain that she really wants the Starbuck’s job, she decides to turn the old property into a boutique hotel.  Her father agrees to help finance the project believing that she will tire of it and that it will be in good shape to ultimately be sold.  As a girl, Inara loved summering on Orcas Island where the estate is located and it also holds dear, yet painful memories, of her mother, who died tragically young there in an automobile accident.  While rehabbing the property, Inara discovers, hidden under a stair tread, an ornately embroidered sleeve from what appears to be a traditional Chinese garment.  From there on, the novel alternates between Inara’s life and that of the sleeve’s creator, Mei Lein, the lone survivor on a ship filled with Chinese, who were forcibly expelled from Seattle not long after passage of the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882.  Loaded onto a steamship, the passengers are told they are being deported to China, but the ship’s captain actually throws these hundreds of people overboard as soon as he is in the straits of San Juan de Fuca.  Researching the provenance of the sleeve she has found, Inara enlists the help of a young Chinese-American professor, slowly discovers the tragic history of Mei Lein, the hidden history of her family, and, well, perhaps you can guess the outcome.  A pleasant read but just a step above an ordinary romance novel.  388 pp.