Preview Formosa Moon at the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books.
“…very funny introduction to Taiwan…” Nury Vittachi
“…two endearingly peculiar love stories between three characters told as a travelogue…” [Expat Matt] Gibson
“…a book about travel and about place, … also … a book about relationships…” Stella Harris
“…a strong addition to the canon of travel writing about Taiwan” Brian Hioe, New Bloom
Formosa Moon Book Launch Party!
Read review at Asian review of Books
Formosa Moon
by Joshua Samuel Brown and Stephanie Huffman
“Stephanie, if we’re going to get serious I should tell you that Taiwan will always be the other woman.”
"You mean I have to share you with 23 million other people?”
Stephanie has never been to Asia; Portland, Oregon seems to be a metropolis to this small-town girl. Josh has spent years living in Taiwan and plans to make that country his home once again. Several years later, they've packed a few essentials, given away everything else and are on a flight to Taipei.
From five-star luxury to a hostel on an island that was once a penal colony, from the chaotic excitement of urban night markets to an isolated mountain village, Josh shows Stephanie the country that has claimed him. Hoping she'll fall in love with Taiwan and choose to live there with him, he's even chosen the place where he plans to propose to her. And then they visit a fortune-teller.
Stephanie, plunged into a whirlwind exploration of Taiwan before she's even recovered from jet lag, is an artist faced with a nonstop barrage of sensory overload. She doesn't speak Chinese, she's on a gluten-free diet, and she's firmly rooted in Josh's itinerary, where there's no room for sitting still. Luckily she's a woman with a taste for adventure.
Formosa Moon sets the bar for a whole new form of travel writing. Written in two voices, it gives the vivid impressions of a first-time Asia traveler and the deep-rooted knowledge of a man who is returning home. Stephanie's excitement, confusion, and delight combine with Josh's irreverent humor and carefully researched facts to create a travel memoir/travel guide that's cloaked in a quest for home. Josh has already found his but he knows Stephanie needs to find hers in her own way. And then there's that fortune-teller...
Joshua Samuel Brown
About Josh
Stephanie Huffman
About Stephanie
2018, 7 1/8 x 9 1/2 inches; 336 pages; paperback; color images
ISBN-10: 1-934159-70-0
ISBN-13: 978-1-934159-70-5
Or from the ThingsAsian Books .
Also by Joshua Samuel Brown: Vignettes of Taiwan