In China's Pearl River Delta in the 1830s, three young women come together in a "girls house," where they will learn the mournful songs and the abject obedience required of maidens about to be married. They know that their arranged marriages will separate them from their friends and family and that a bad one can seal a woman's fate to a life of cruelty and oppression by the husband and her in-laws. Shadow, who has secretly learned to read, struggles with tradition and her own sense of independence. She, Mei Ju, and Rooster deny tradition by taking vows of spinsterhood, but not becoming nuns, and begging the public for support. They plan to support themselves by working. But their defiance costs them their relationships with family and friends as the village ostracizes them and few will help them in their struggle to find food and shelter. This novel was inspired by the spinsterhood movement in China in the nineteenth century. ((Reviewed August 2000)) Copyright 2000 Booklist Reviews