My Other Heart

A magical read … that’ll break your heart then put it back together again – Book of the Month * Stylist *
I am bereft to have finished it! From the suburbs of Philadelphia to the streets of Saigon, I was completely immersed in the lives of these very special characters. I loved it. – Emily Itami, author of ‘Fault Lines’
A mesmerising novel filled with different types of love and secrets from the past, My Other Heart is an exploration of identity, motherhood, and friendship. Emma Nanami Strenner’s luminous debut follows three unforgettable women as they search for truth and belonging. Poignant and powerful, this is a novel that lingers long after the final page – Jean Kwok, author of ‘Girl in Translation’
My heart was captured by this gorgeous book. My Other Heart is one of those novels that gets its hooks into you and doesn’t let go. A beautifully told story of family, identity, loss and belonging – Jennie Godfrey, No.1 Sunday Times bestselling author of ‘The List of Suspicious Things’
Beautifully written and accomplished – Nussaibah Younis, author of ‘Fundamentally’
Two complex, shimmering young women burst from the pages of My Other Heart, authentic and full of life. I fell in love with Kit and Sabrina, their flawed but caring mothers, and Emma Nanami Strenner’s beautiful words – Jessica Stanley, author of ‘Consider Yourself Kissed’
I’m grateful to Emma Nanami Strenner for this story of two young Asian-American women, who grapple with big questions of culture and social class, while also navigating the everyday complexities of friendship, love, and daughterhood. My Other Heart offers no pat or easy answers, thank goodness. Instead, Sabrina and Kit learn that identity isn’t always simple and that only they can answer the question of who they are and to what world—or worlds–they want to belong – Marisa de los Santos, New York Times bestselling author of ‘Love Walked In’
I’ve never read anything quite like Emma Nanami Strenner’s My Other Heart: gorgeous, devastating, equally joyous and heartbreaking. Weaving three disparate lives across years and thousands of miles, it recounts the ripple effect expanding from a single, fateful day in the past, spinning an ecosystem of pain and memory around it. Reaching the end of Sabrina, Kit, and Mimi’s story was like taking in a gasp of air after spending a minute underwater. – Jinwoo Chong, author of ‘Flux’
My Other Heart is a wise, well observed, and transporting debut that explores what it means to belong. At once an immersive coming of age novel and an unflinching study of race, class, and manners, it confronts loneliness, cowardice, the quest for self-acceptance, and the effort required to truly see one another - even the people we think we’re closest to - head-on. Sabrina Chen is an unforgettable heroine. I was on her side from start to finish. – Emma Knight, New York Times bestselling author of ‘The Life Cycle of the Common Octopus’
A story that probes questions of identity, how we all have an idea of who we are. But it excels as a portrait of young women finding their way in the world … A terrific, nuanced portrayal of female friendship and first loves - it really threw me back to the agony and the ecstasy. Clever, poignant and gripping, what a combination – Natasha Poliszczuk

Emma Nanami Strenner has been a journalist for over twenty years. She has written for VOGUE International, ELLE, Stylist Magazine, Conde Nast Traveller and The Times. Emma is British Japanese and studied at the University of Leeds. She completed the Curtis Brown Creative Six-Month Novel Writing Course and is also a Faber Academy Alumni. She has spent much of her life living abroad in Japan, Vietnam, Australia, China, Singapore and the US. She currently lives in London. My Other Heart is her first novel.

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