QUIETUDE

a novel

Eva Lou writes beautifully – and knowingly – about music, art, and the secrets and longings that can span generations. [Quietude] is rich with Taiwan's fascinating history, but the characters' personal histories will stay with you long after you've read this moving novel's final words.

 – David Ebershoff, best-selling author of The Danish Girl & The 19th Wife and Random House editor to Pulitzer-winners

Set in Taiwan and France in the 1940s and 2004, Quietude is the story of 27-year-old Mia Lin, an opera singer who finds sudden fame after her breakthrough debut in Paris as Madama Butterfly. In the wake of her success, Mia returns to Taiwan to visit her adoptive father, Lin, an elderly painter and a survivor of the turbulent 40s Taiwan – a period, Mia learns, that took from Lin a great love and ushered in 40 years of martial law in Taiwan. In his daughter’s triumph, Lin sees the opportunity for redemption: both of his own and that of his homeland.

But Mia’s most cherished ideals will be upended when she falls in love with Dr. Hun, an esteemed doctor who has built a life of enviable wealth and respectability while harboring secrets of both his heart and his connection to the past.

a James Jones First Novel Finalist

Expected 2025