When seventeen-year-old Jo Kuan loses her job as a milliner’s assistant for making “some of the ladies uncomfortable” by giving opinions and being Chinese, she decides to put those opinions to good use and anonymously submit an advice column under the pseudonym “Miss Sweetie” to the Focus. She knows the newspaper is struggling because she secretly lives underneath its office, in an old Underground Railroad stop. As the column soars in popularity, Jo returns to work for the Payne family, where she was turned out a number of years ago and continues to be treated badly, but where she finds clues to the mystery of her parents. Her search for answers soon entangles her in the local crime scene, a high-profile horse race, and the attention of the Focus’s young editor. In 1890s Atlanta, staying invisible is the safest thing for a Chinese woman to do, and Jo risks everything to finally be seen. (Becky Standal, Longview Public Library,
for Evergreen Book Award)