Description for A CERTAIN SMILE by Judith Michael: A bittersweet story of a perfect but impossible love, set against the teeming, complex energy and hidden dangers of contemporary China. Miranda Graham, a clothing designer and the widowed mother of two teenagers, travels to China to work with the factories that will produce her designs. Sheltered, uncertain of herself, Miranda has always stayed close to her parents and her home. At first overwhelmed by the chaotic foreignness of China, she soon discovers what she never expected or would have believed possible: a passionate, all-consuming love. Yuan Li, son of a Chinese mother and an American soldier, had his family turned upside down by the Cultural Revolution. Now, in the new China, he owns a large and successful construction company. What begins as a friendship based on curiosity and attraction soon blossoms into a love affair passionate enough to topple the cultural wall that divides them. They spend every available moment together until the realities of China - an intrusive government, corrupt businessmen, and Li's wildly ambitious son - test their love in the crucible of politics, nationality, and family loyalties.
