Traveling through China in 1989, not long after the Tiananmen Square massacre, Fanny hopes to make sense of her brother Bruno's death in a motorcycle accident by finding a woman with whom he had exchanged letters. On her journey Fanny's fate becomes entwined with a handsome British rogue, an American of Russian-Cuban descent returning to Tashkent, and two Chinese men - one who loves Charles Dickens, the other a budding, entrepreneurial con man - struggling to find their way in a country undergoing tumultuous transformation.

Kathleen Lee's debut novel explores the tension between the allure of the unfamiliar that draws us to distant lands and its unbidden tendency to reveal us to ourselves. With its rollicking sense of humor and slyly lyrical voice, as well as an extraordinary deftness in the rendering of place, All Things Tending towards the Eternal is an unforgettable ride.