Return to the sparkling world of Loveboat, this time with Pearl Wong, on a completely latest, romantic, whirlwind adventure from Abigail Hing Wen, Latest York Times bestselling writer of Loveboat, Taipei, streaming now on Paramount+ (adaptation titled Love in Taipei).

Pearl was ready for a worldwide stage. As a substitute, she must stage a comeback.

Seventeen-year-old music prodigy Pearl Wong had the summer of her dreams planned—until a fall from grace leaves her in need of recent plans…and a latest image.

Where higher to revamp her “brand” than at Chien Tan, the Taipei summer program for elite students that rocketed her older sister, Ever, on a path to romance and self-fulfillment years ago.

But because the alumni know, Chien Tan is definitely Loveboat—the extravagant world where prodigies party till dawn—and there’s more awaiting Pearl there than she could have ever imagined, like a scandalous party at midnight, a romantic entanglement with a mysterious suitor…and a summer that can change her without end.

Sweeping, glamorous, and deeply soulful, this companion to the Latest York Times bestselling novel Loveboat, Taipei and Loveboat Reunion will reunite readers with their favorite characters, in an exhilarating latest journey of romance, self-discovery, and empowerment. Perfect for fans of Jenny Han and Sarah Dessen.

But don’t just hear it from us. Abigail also has a really special note for fans as this special series involves an end.

“We follow Ever’s younger sister, Pearl, on a latest journey of discovery, as she searches for a mysterious stranger encountered at a celebration at midnight in addition to her great-grandma’s Chinese lute, which ultimately brings the Wong women to their family village temple. Fan favorites all return: Ever, Sophie, Rick and Xavier, with Marc as the brand new headmaster,” she said. “As I wrote between takes on set in Taipei, Ashley Liao—who plays Ever within the film— told me she expected a hoop on Ever’s finger by the top… and here it’s. I’ve loved hearing from so many readers and viewers, and I hope you enjoy this finale as much as I enjoyed writing it.”

Able to dive in? Well, we got the primary chapter all ready for ya so you may read ahead. So get be sure to preorder your copy and in addition start a re-read if you ought to reminisce a little bit before trying out the third and final book within the series!

An Excerpt From Loveboat Without end
By Abigail Hing Wen

Chagrin Falls, Ohio

The white envelope that drops through our mail slot is the dimensions and heft of a magazine. Or a music book of piano sonatas, which have often found their way through that very same slot. But I understand it’s not either this time. I swoop down on it because the metal flap slaps shut. A bass drum has replaced my chest, pounding out my heartbeats to a metronome on overdrive.

“Mom! It’s here!” I yell.

At this weight, it may well’t be a rejection letter, can it? No. No, it may well’t. But months of anticipating, dreading its arrival . . . and I can’t muster the courage to open the package just yet. I run my thumb over the gold embossed monogram that stands for Apollo Summer Youth Symphony.

Old-fashioned, elegant. You possibly can practically smell the generations of excellence—centuries of tradition—wafting off the heavy paper stock.

Okay, go time. “Please, please, please, please, please!” I whisper a fervent prayer—and rip it open.

Mom hurries into the foyer from the kitchen, drying her hands on her blue-apple-print apron.

“Dear Ms. Wong, we’re delighted—Oh my God! I’m in!” I fling my arms around Mom’s frail neck, almost knocking her over—and sending her bifocals clattering to the ground. “I got in! I got in!”

I recuperate her glasses, which she returns to the tip of her nose. She reads, “We’re delighted to confess you to this 12 months’s class. Oh, honey. You worked so hard for this!” Her brown eyes shine as she wraps her arms around me, then pulls back to look me within the eyes. “You deserve this, Pearl. I’m so pleased with you.”

I can barely consider it. Two months ago, nine judges listened to me play my heart out on a Steinway piano within the Hunter College auditorium, and no less than six of them decided my music was ok to make the cut. At the least six of them were pleased.

“They only take 100 kids from the entire country.” I scan the roster of names that form a pair of chic columns on their very own page. With a thrill, I recognize a couple of heavy hitters from performances I’ve played in over time.

“I’m the one pianist, which implies . . .” I page through to my repertoire, the songs I’m assigned to play for the concert series on the summer’s end. “I’m playing the Mozart Concerto in D Minor!” His darker concerto, written later in his tragically short life. It’s incredible—the contrast of sunshine, sweet notes with the darker raging ones, sure together into three movements, thirty minutes in length. And I’ll play it accompanied by the complete symphonic orchestra, before an auditorium of two,738 seats at Lincoln Center in Latest York!

My head is fogging over. Pink clouds of happiness obscure any rational thought. There are too many words on the pages I’m gripping. Big ones that on this moment I’m too ecstatic to grasp. I shove the papers into Mom’s hands.

“Read the remainder,” I encourage. “Tell me if that is real.”

She scans the pages while I storm up and down the front room. I can’t give attention to anything. Calm down. Take notice of the things around you. Breathe.

I inhale, then a loooong exhale. Okay. Blue curtains, blue couches, blue carpet. God, every thing is blue. How did I not notice that before? I pause before Mom’s collection of brass miniatures—a piano, a grandfather clock, an iron. I pick up a tiny park bench, with three words engraved on its backrest: thankful grateful blessed.

Yes. I squeeze it in my hand. Yes.

“I peeled you a grapefruit!” Mom says, her eyes still on the papers. “Eat some.”

Food all the time comes first in our family. Feeding me semi-nonstop is her equivalent of love you, kiddo. I set down the miniature and head for the kitchen, where Mom’s big blue bowl of citrus sits on the counter. But I can’t eat. A concerto. Most piano pieces are written for solo performance, which is one in all the explanations it may well be such a lonely instrument to dedicate your life to. But a concerto. It’s a piano solo with the whole symphonic orchestra in a semicircle behind you, playing along—100 strings, woodwinds, brass, and percussion. It’s the chance of a lifetime! One my dad helped me work toward and cheered me on to so faithfully, until he passed away two years ago.

Mom is opening a small box left on our doorstep as I return.

She removes a glass globe on a velvet stand. Inside it floats a tiny grand piano and golden words Apollo Summer Youth Symphony. I weigh it in my hands.

“It’s beautiful,” I breathe. “And, oh my gosh, I’ll be in Latest York! I’ll get to spend time with Ever!” My older sister, who works as a choreographer for the Latest York City Ballet. She’s twenty-four to my seventeen. We’re super close, but since she left home for school, we haven’t had nearly as much time together as I wish we did. And now, we’ll have the entire summer!

Mom waves the papers. “Everyone seems to be performing 3 times through the festival week in August. You’re playing a solo, a piano- violin duo, and . . .” She starts to sob uncontrollably.

“Mom, what’s unsuitable?” I grip her arm and hand her a tissue from the box. “You’re not doing that thing where you get over-invested and my successes grow to be yours, are you?” I tease her gently.

She dashes her hand over her eyes. “Your dad can be so pleased with you.”

My throat aches. Yes. He was the one who discovered Apollo online a couple of years ago: What a unbelievable program. When you can get in, Pearl. It is going to change your life! I wish he were here to have a good time with us, pushing his thick glasses closer to his face and squeezing my hand in his worn ones. We’ve had pleased moments since we lost him, however the pleased is all the time constricted by the vacuum he left behind.

Mom sniffs noisily. “I used to be remembering, just this morning, that point we were detained on the Canadian border trying to return back home here. You were only a baby. The way in which they checked out us. So suspicious. I remember your father and I saying then, ‘My God, this country won’t ever accept us.’” She clasps the Apollo papers to her heart. “And now, I do know we were unsuitable.

They have accepted us. Because of you, and your sister, and all of your exertions. I just wish he knew.”

“Oh, Mom.” I hug her tight, tucking her graying head under my chin. She and Dad moved to the USA over twenty- five years ago. All these years later, I didn’t know she felt this manner about my music performances. Perhaps Dad did, too. On this moment, I feel the identical, taking a look at the official gold emblem on the page. Apollo Summer Youth Symphony. That is legitimacy.

After so a few years of standing on the surface, gazing longingly in, I’ve been invited to the club.

~

“Congratulations, Pearl,” my manager, Julie Winslow, says on FaceTime later that day. Her dark-blond hair is twisted into her usual chignon, and her ice-blue eyes, framed by long mascaraed lashes, crinkle together with her broad smile. “You earned this. I’m so pleased with you.”

“Thanks,” I say. Julie signed me a couple of years ago and walks on water; praise from her is hard-won. “I actually have one solo song to make a decision on. I assumed, possibly—”

I chew on my bottom lip, unsure whether to proceed. I recently bumped into a wonderful and complicated modern piece on YouTube by a composer nobody’s ever heard of. Chaotic but organized rhythms that didn’t restrict themselves to the eighty-eight keys but in addition got here from drumming on the piano cover and even plucking the strings inside. But would Julie go for it?

“Play the Rachmaninoff,” Julie says. “Incredibly technically difficult. It shows off your abilities to the fullest. The reviewers will take note. I’ll arrange for the accompanying pianist.”

I exhale. It’s the composer’s hardest piece, going from a trickle of notes to a finger-twisting torrent that plumbs the depths of human emotion. Considered one of Dad’s favorites, and I do find it irresistible, too. I push down the whisper of disappointment—drumming on a piano can be gimmicky anyway. I’m grateful for her guidance in a world I’m learning to navigate.

“Sounds perfect, Julie.” I set Apollo’s glass globe on my piano where I can see it as I play. “I’ll get to work.”

~

I’ve been hooked on music since I used to be 4 and Dad played me Leonard Bernstein’s recording of Peter and the Wolf by Prokofiev, with all of the ways animals may very well be imitated by strings and woodwinds. Then there was Mozart’s opera The Magic Flute; the very idea was delicious. Songs are how I experience the world: they lure me into secret gardens and stormy rivers. Piano was also my bonding time with Dad, who sat with me, first to assist me with my dyslexia, which made it hard to read the music, and later, to maintain me company. He was all the time positive, even when my fingers wouldn’t cooperate with my ears. Even now, each time I sit down on the piano, I still imagine his gentle, encouraging presence beside me. You possibly can do that, Pearl. Piano doubles as my way of staying near him, and I’m so thankful I actually have it.

~

Mom and I make the half-hour trip to Cleveland to splurge on an updated headshot with knowledgeable photographer. We’re used to spending hours within the automobile together driving to my music events.

Probably why she and I actually have a better relationship than she and Ever do.

Ever had it rough—she was the one who broke the mold. She paved the best way for me by selecting dance as a career. On the time, my parents thought the one viable profession path was medical school, until she showed them the trail she was blazing for herself.

And after Dad passed away, for higher or worse, Mom lost lots of her will to fight us.

Pierre, our photographer, has a head filled with wild brown curls and a studio bursting with Renaissance paintings. I feel the Apollo aura shining on me as he positions me standing and seated. He tugs my purple beret over my left brow for a dramatic effect and smooths my long black hair down my back.

“Magnifique!”he says. “Vous êtes très belle. Very beautiful.” “Take one in all my mom,” I say, tugging at her arm.

“Oh no.” Mom blushes, something I’ve never seen her do, and runs a hand through the graying leaves of her hair. “I’m too old for photos.”

“No you’re not.” I guide her to the backdrop. “The red background is ideal along with your skin tone. And it’s only for us anyway.” She protests, but when Pierre lifts his camera, she smiles.

Afterward, we sip sparkling water and pore over our glossy images on his screen. “You look so pretty,” I say to Mom.

“It turned out okay, didn’t it?” she says, embarrassed but obviously pleased. She flips to the following image of me: gazing over my shoulder and backdropped by plum blossoms at night. “I like your smile.”

My beret is sort of a cloud floating over my head. I fell in love with berets in middle school French class, and so they’ve type of grow to be my signature piece on social media. Beneath its soft fabric, my black hair tumbles down my shoulders, framing glowing cheeks and mysterious dark eyes. My body, which has all the time been heavier than I’d like, looks surprisingly good in my black concert dress.

“I appear to be a movie star,” I say, dazed.

“Perhaps you can be one someday. A star!” Mom says, and I just laugh.

Just a few days later, I email my glammed-up photo to Maude Tanner, the Apollo administrator, who I envision as a grandmotherly white-haired woman.

“Thanks, Pearl!” she responds immediately. “We look ahead to seeing you soon.”

I feel a thrill deep inside me.

Mom contacts the World Journal, the most important Chinese language newspaper in North America. They profiled my debut at Carnegie Hall after I was thirteen, all of which sounds more impressive than it actually is nowadays. They tell Mom they’re excited by doing a bit on me attending Apollo, so she arranges for an interview the day before I leave.

Two weeks before this system kicks off, Apollo sends me an update: their website for the summer program is live.

“Mom, it’s up!” I rush into the front room, and Mom joins me on the couch. We scroll through on my laptop: The every day rehearsal schedule is packed but exciting. The ultimate performances, including solos and ensembles in smaller halls, are all day Saturday, August 11. Mom will fly in from Ohio, and it is going to be a probability for her to see Ever, which is all the time on the forefront of her thoughts.

Last but not least, we scroll through the musicians, savoring them. It’s a virtual hall of fame, with classes from the Eighties to present day: eighty musicians between the ages of fifteen and eighteen, hailing from Hawaii to Maine and Seattle to Boston. Marie Smit draws her bow across her violin strings. Geoff Pavloski plays a marimba, two mallets gripped in each hand.

At the top of the alphabet, I come to my airbrushed headshot: Pearl Wong, concert pianist.

“I’m not dreaming,” I say. I scan the bio. Words leap out at me. Beautiful ones: “Known for her effortlessly expressive playing, Pearl Wong has a command of the piano well beyond her youthful years. She plays together with her entire body and soul, bringing audiences together with her. Um, wow. Are they talking about me?”

“He’s very nice-looking. Good hair.” Mom points to a Korean American flutist. “There are only three Asians,” she notes.

“I’m Asian American,” I correct her. “They is perhaps, too.” But she’s right concerning the numbers. Besides the lovable flutist, there’s an Indian American cellist . . . and me. I click on my name and arrive at a page with my repertoire:

I close my laptop. It’s real. Dad, I’m really in. My throat swells. I can barely choke out the massive truth in all of this: “I’m so lucky they took me.”

I close my laptop. It’s real. Dad, I’m really in. My throat swells. I can barely choke out the massive truth in all of this: “I’m so lucky they took me.”

~

I learn everyone’s names, faces, and instruments by heart. Not because Julie is consistently telling me it’s essential to network, but because they’re about to be my latest friends. The remaining of the time, I practice. All our individual prep is to be accomplished before we arrive, so our days might be spent practicing together for our performances.

For hours at my piano, I run my fingers over the ivory keys, mastering the concerto page by page. Ever once asked me if I’d reasonably have an exquisite, emotive painting with a scratch down its middle or a flawless painting that meant nothing to me. The reply was clear: give attention to the fantastic thing about the sound as a substitute of on perfection. In fact, I still do should get the notes right. I execute the cascading runs, pushing the tempo but in addition the emotion. Again. Again. Again, again, again until I’ve brought my hands in keeping with what my ear tells me the music should sound like.

Most skilled musicians play eight-plus hours a day, but I often cap out at six. It’s not as unattainable to suit the time in because it sounds: I get up with the sun and play two hours before breakfast. After school, I get a snack, then sit down for an additional two hours before dinner with Mom. I dash off my homework, then play one other couple of hours before bedtime.

I understand it’s not a traditional teenager’s life. It doesn’t leave much time for friends and definitely not romantic relationships. Friday nights are for practicing. Saturday’s are on the Cleveland Institute of Music: private piano lessons, theory classes, and choir, which teaches me to be a component of an ensemble and overall musicality. I travel six times a 12 months for performances—most recently, Philadelphia, Atlanta, Denver, Chicago, San Jose, and London.

Sometimes, when the youngsters at college are talking about weekend plans—movie show, road trip, shopping, dates—a component of me wishes I could join them. However the music demands to be what it deserves to be. And so my fingers keep tackling the keys. I imagine Dad’s encouragements. “That phrase! I felt it right here,” he’d say, closing his eyes and touching his fingertips to his heart. I wish he could hear my debut concerto performance in Manhattan. I wish I could see his gently lined face light up with pride.

Thanks for keeping faith, Dad. I miss you. A lot.

My phone chimes with a text from Julie, a blue bubble with white type: How’s your Apollo TikTok coming?

I groan and slip off my piano bench. Julie has me post twice every week to “keep the algorithms fresh,” all a part of the general plan to construct my profile as a public artist and be relevant to my generation. Julie’s biggest clients have huge followings on TikTok, and I do know I’m lucky to have her advising me.

But there’s nothing more discouraging than spending hours making one in all those short silly videos, only to have it viewed by, like, five people. Still, I’ve posted faithfully for the past 12 months, and my posts have steadily climbed to about two thousand to 10 thousand views, depending on the whims of some secret programming I haven’t cracked yet.

Now, fortunately, I’ve got something good to post about.

Haven’t made it yet, I confess. But it surely’s coming.

Post a selfie of you on the piano. You’re excited to be joining the crew. Your classmates are already posting.

Nudge, nudge. That’s Julie.

You possibly can see their samples online.

I’m on it, I promise.

The cool thing concerning the TikTok icon is it’s actually an eighth note. Endearing. I open my app and seek for posts tagging @Apollo: a violinist from Los Angeles together with her hair in an extended blond ponytail. An oboe player from upstate Latest York.

I rise up to alter my clothes for a selfie, and an envelope falls from the overstuffed storage compartment of my piano bench. It’s labeled with the Chien Tan logo—an invite to a six-week summer program in Taipei to learn language and culture. I get one every 12 months, offering an all-expenses paid scholarship. They like me for my musical accomplishments, and after all, my sister attended six years ago, when she was a 12 months older than I’m now. She was popular there, despite the early gray hair a few of her (ahem) adventures gave Mom and Dad.

I touch the brand. The scholarship is flattering, and I’ve all the time secretly desired to go. Not for the cultural part—however the transformation. Chien Tan has a secret identity: Loveboat. That’s what the scholars call it. Parents don’t understand it’s an enormous party with hookups galore.

Ever got here back with the incomparable Rick Woo as a boyfriend and a boatload of courage. That’s when she dropped out of her premed program to pursue dancing and altered our whole family. Without Ever—without Loveboat—who knows what type of path my parents may need pushed me toward. A business degree? A profession in law? Nothing unsuitable with either—they’re just not for me. I’d much reasonably fly—the clear, crisp notes swirling around me, and my hands soaring over the keys.

“What’s that?” Mom asks. She’s are available with a brush and black trash bag to wash out the hallway closet for the primary time in ten years.

“Mom, Ever’s not going to look in there.” I smile. Ever’s coming home from Latest York tonight for a weekend visit, and Mom’s gone into extreme nesting mode. I show her the creased letter, dated a couple of months ago. “It’s a Chien Tan invitation. All expenses paid, plane ticket and every thing.”

Just as I expected, she frowns. “Again? Every 12 months they hound you. Don’t they know by now the reply isn’t any? I should call them and tell them to stop sending you those ridiculous invitations.”

I smile. “They’re not so bad, Mom.”

Mom just harumphs and opens the closet door.

~

In my bedroom, I pull on my slim brown dress with the cowl neckline. I prefer vivid colours, but Julie is adamant that my outfit should never draw attention, only my music. But she’s okay with me wearing my berets for social media, so I adjust my orange one over my black hair.

After I return to the front room, Mom is tossing old winter coats from the closet to the ground. I adjust the Apollo glass globe on the piano, then sit on the bench at an angle that lets my face catch sunlight from the window. I pop my iPhone into the phone stand Julie had me put money into for just this purpose and snap photos of me looking down at my keys, and a couple of looking straight into the camera.

“Almost done!” Mom says triumphantly. She dashes her arm over her sweaty hairline and plops a large, conical straw hat onto the coffee table, beside a pile of gloves and scarves I haven’t worn since middle school.

“Where did we get this?” I ask, picking up the hat. I’ve seen it on the closet shelf for years. It looks Chinese, old skool, with a cool woven pattern that makes me consider the rhythms of a song. It’s lightweight, with a circumference like a really large plate.

Perfect for warding off the rain.

“I don’t remember,” she says, tugging at a stubborn scarf.

“It’s cute.” I don’t often wear anything ethnic, not since I used to be a little bit girl taking Chinese dance classes. But this one’s fun. I swap my beret out for it and snap a couple of more selfies, seated and standing. I like the best way it frames my face, and its roundness complements the oblong piano background.

“Mom, what do you’re thinking that?” I show her the very best 4 photos, though I’m unsure she knows what TikTok is, or how multiple photos might be became a video collage.

She laughs. “So cute. East meets West.”

I assemble the photos for a video collage that makes me pop up in several poses around my piano, ending with my hands coyly tilting the hat’s brim over my face. Pierre would approve. I text the finished video to Julie, who reviews all my posts before they go live. She often has comments—make it more personal, show more of me as a substitute of inanimate objects. Things like that. I draft a sample caption: Can’t wait to affix the cohort @Apollo in only a couple of weeks.

Add “of wonderful musicians” after “cohort,” Julie writes back.

Thanks for getting this done.

I upload the video onto TikTok, add a pop song, then shut off my phone and head back to my piano.

~

Morning sunlight pierces my eyes. Mozart’s Magic Flute fades with a blurred dream, punctuated by a rap on my door.

“Are available in?” I mumble.

Ever pops in, holding her phone out toward me. Her sleek black hair frames that oval face tapering gently to her chin. That face I do know higher than my very own, that makes every thing here feel complete.

“Pearl—”

“You’re home!” I fly at her and squeeze her in a hug, swinging sideways with a rush of lightheadedness. She flew in last night after I used to be already asleep, and now she’s in her old highschool pajamas with fluffy blue bunnies hopping all over the place. Identical to old times.

But she looks terrible, with dark circles under her eyes and a distressed expression.

“Is every thing okay?” I ask. “Is it Rick? I do know the breakup’s been hard. Do you ought to—”

“It’s not that. It’s your TikTok. It’s blowing up.”

“Well, that’s great! I’m really bad at getting any engagement there. It’s so tricky, and I—”

“Pearl! Hearken to me!” Ever’s delicate brows furrow over her eyes. Her voice is clipped and urgent, and he or she thrusts my phone into my hand. “That is bad. It is advisable delete your post immediately.”

Text copyright © 2023 by Abigail Hing Wen. Reprinted by permission of HarperTeen, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers. All Rights Reserved.

Loveboat Without end, by Abigail Hing Wen, can be released on November 7, 2023. To preorder the book, click on the retailer of your selection:

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Entertainment Editor

Tamara Fuentes is the present Entertainment Editor at Cosmopolitan, where she covers TV, movies, books, celebrities, and more. She will often be present in front of a screen fangirling about something latest. Before joining Cosmopolitan, she was the entertainment editor over at Seventeen. She can also be a member of the Television Critics Association and the Latino Entertainment Journalists Association. Follow her on Twitter and Instagram.