If you're looking for one of those wonderful "take me someplace exotic" books for summer, you won't do better than the latest from novelist Lisa See, who has carved a rich career chronicling the lives of Chinese women.

In her new novel, she takes readers on a lively journey both tragic and hopeful, from the Shanghai of the 1930s to Los Angeles' Chinatown in the mid-20th century.

She renders both settings with loving, precise strokes that create a world her narrator, Pearl Chin, and her sister, May, fully inhabit along with the reader.

The novel, "Shanghai Girls," opens in 1937 when the teenage sisters are living a privileged, happy life in Shanghai.

They play at working as "beautiful girls," modeling for advertisements and magazine covers.

Pearl is the more studious and quiet; May's the party girl who's prettier and more vivacious.

They know nothing of how their family acquired its wealth and there are casual, if horrific, hints that the Shanghai they adore has a much darker aspect.

"Everyone agrees -- even in families -- that it's better not to inquire about the past, because everyone in Shanghai has come here to get away from something or has something to hide,"

The girls' willful oblivion comes to an abrupt end when, first, their father, needing money to cover his gambling debts, sells them into marriage to two Chinese-American men who live in Los Angeles. Then the Japanese army launches its murderous invasion of their city.

Fleeing to L.A. after their father disappears, the sisters gradually build lives around their in-laws' many businesses in Chinatown.

See masterfully weaves the intimate story of the women and their extended family, but then the subtle rivalry between Pearl and May grows wider when May gets involved in the movie business.

It all comes to a head in a climax that seems to come a bit late but will give readers plenty of hope for a sequel and the conclusion to the Chin sisters' tale.