Carolyn Huynh
Biography
Carolyn Huynh loves writing about messy Asian women who never learn from their mistakes. After living up and down the west coast, she now resides in Los Angeles with her partner and her chaotic dog. When she’s not writing, Carolyn daydreams about having iced coffee on a rooftop in Sài Gòn. The Fortunes of Jaded Women is her debut novel and was a Good Morning America book club pick and selected as one of the best books of 2022 by NPR. Her sophomore novel, The Breadwinner, comes out from Atria in Spring 2025.
Books
Everyone in Orange County’s Little Saigon knew that the Duong sisters were cursed.It started with their ancestor Oanh who dared to leave her marriage for true love—so a fearsome Vietnamese witch cursed Oanh and her descendants so that they would never find love or happiness, and the Duong women would give birth to daughters, never sons.Oanh’s current descendant Mai Nguyen knows this curse well. She’s divorced, and after an explosive disagreement a decade ago, she’s estranged from her younger sisters, Minh Pham (the middle and the mediator) and Khuyen Lam (the youngest who swears she just runs humble coffee shops and nail salons, not Little Saigon’s underground). Though Mai’s three adult daughters, Priscilla, Thuy, and Thao, are successful in their careers (one of them is John Cho’s dermatologist!), the same can’t be said for their love life. Mai is convinced they might drive her to an early grave.Desperate for guidance, she consults Auntie Hua, her trusted psychic in Hawaii, who delivers an unexpected prediction: this year, her family will witness a marriage, a funeral, and the birth of a son. This prophecy will reunite estranged mothers, daughters, aunts, and cousins—for better or for worse.A multi-narrative novel brimming with levity and candor, The Fortunes of Jaded Women is about mourning, meddling, celebrating, and healing together as a family. It shows how Vietnamese women emerge victorious, even if the world is against them.