The Phoenix Pencil Company: A Novel
by Allison KingCategory
About this book
A REESE’S BOOK CLUB PICK “The Phoenix Pencil Company is a masterful blending of history, fantasy, and romance that sank into my heart . . . This book had me smiling through my tears.” — Fonda Lee, author of the Green Bone Saga In this dazzling debut novel, a hidden and nearly forgotten magic—of Reforging pencils, bringing the memories they contain back to life—holds the power to transform a young woman’s relationship with her grandmother, and to mend long-lost connections across time and space. Monica Tsai spends most days on her computer, journaling the details of her ordinary life and coding for a program that seeks to connect strangers online. A self-proclaimed recluse, she's always struggled to make friends and, as a college freshman, finds herself escaping into a digital world, counting the days until she can return home to her beloved grandparents. They are now in their nineties, and Monica worries about them constantly—especially her grandmother, Yun, who survived two wars in China before coming to the States, and whose memory has begun to fade. Though Yun rarely speaks of her past, Monica is determined to find the long-lost cousin she was separated from years ago. One day, the very program Monica is helping to build connects her to a young woman, whose gift of a single pencil holds a surprising clue. Monica’s discovery of a hidden family history is exquisitely braided with Yun’s own memories as she writes of her years in Shanghai, working at the Phoenix Pencil Company. As WWII rages outside their door, Yun and her cousin, Meng, learn of a special power the women in their family possess: the ability to Reforge a pencil’s words. But when the government uncovers their secret, they are forced into a life of espionage, betraying other people’s stories to survive. Combining the cross-generational family saga and epistolary form of A Tale for the Time Being with the uplifting, emotional magic of The Midnight Library, Allison King’s stunning debut novel asks: who owns and inherits our stories? The answers and secrets that surface on the page may have the unerasable power to reconnect a family and restore a legacy.
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What readers are saying
sharon f. leffPencils Are Mightier Than Swords!
"Although the story/stories become too long, the characters shine especially Monica and her grandmother. The magic of these phoenix pencils and these women able to decode and transmit messages becomes the priceless commodity of those seeking information and power. So much of their lives had been invested in translating the stories of others that each generation worried for the next and the opportunity to write, live, and remember their own stories. ["
September 2, 2025 Verified Purchase
WinstonTimely novel as we endure and rise above for times like this
"As we get closer and closer to 2027 where global monitors believe a new war will arise between nations, Allison King has written and published a perfect and timely novel for the tensions of the day, the past and our future. Along with the keys to diffusing the path towards war for those who are truly invested in working towards peace in the horizon. Seamlessly flipping between the key eras and times of 2018 and 1949, Allison masterfully places the reader in both eras authentically and realistically. Such a skill from any author takes time, mastery and balance that very few are ever able to realize in their writings, but Allison manages to accomplish this with rare aplomb in her first novel. She takes us through the harrowing and endearing perspectives of well built and established characters; each who give us a combined message that we ignore at our own peril: That if we are to realize a better future, we must study the nationalists and communists and their warring feuds of the past. All in order to understand the ruin which would befall all sides of humanity if we are to ever repeat their respective mistakes. The key characters in the Phoenix Pencil company fought to reforge again and again, generation to generation, all so that their stories may one day inspire advocates of peace instead of strife. That their respective struggles and learned truths from the past were written with hope, pain and suffering to the optimism that those listeners of today would learn and not repeat the mistakes of yesterday. May we take such lessons to heart, and may they light the inner fire for peace in our contemporary generations so that they set their feet on the right path. As one of the book's heroes announces to us all near the end: "The Phoenix is pulsing, my wrist is on fire. Never have I been surer of myself yet also more alone." You are not alone. Let us not let her down and may those of us who hear, carry her story forward so that she and those like her, with their ever-strengthening lights, never stand alone. ["
December 26, 2025 Verified Purchase