I was inspired by my family's story across three generations. My debut novel, The House Filler, is based on my grandmother's life. The true stories she and my family lived through were so extraordinary—filled with drama, resilience, and unforgettable moments—that I felt compelled to tell them. I began writing this three-book family saga in 2006. It took me twenty years to complete the trilogy, with The House Filler becoming the first published novel.

The House Filler is told through the experiences of Golden Phoenix, a widow with bound feet who faces war, poverty, and political turmoil as she fights for survival, freedom, and happiness. After the untimely death of her husband, Golden Phoenix is determined to keep her family together. However, poverty forces her to make the heart-wrenching decision to give her teenage twins to the Red Army. During the upheaval of the Japanese invasion of her hometown, she is separated from her two young girls, and her remaining son leaves to fight with the Nationalist army. Golden Phoenix, along with her adopted son, remains to endure the horrors and the hardship of war. When the Civil War ends with the Communists in power in 1949, one of her twins, a member of the Communist Party, is wrongly accused of being a traitor and is sentenced to death. Golden Phoenix and her family must find a way to save her son’s life.