London love story
is the first novel Yilin Zhong wrote in London, 3 years after she came to the UK. After being published in China, it became the #3 bestselling novel on Amazon and ranked #10 on the overall bestseller list. It was chosen as Amazon Editor's Choice for over 5 months and was in the top 100 bestsellers for over 40 weeks.
Recommended by media and leading commentators
Most of Zhong's works are mainly about love, among which the most famous ones include "London Single Gril's Diary", "London Love Story" and "Chinatown"... "London Love Story" was published in 2010 and quickly entered the top 10 of the Amazon Bestseller list in China.
Featured People: Yilin Zhong in London, BBC
Yilin Zhong is a talented woman. She published her first novel when she was less than 20 years old. She went to the UK a few years ago and continued writing there. We met occasionally when she returned to China, having a drink and a chat as in the old days. I feel that she has matured and her novels are getting better and better. She is also a very loyal person. I once said to someone, that if there is only one friend left in the world, that person must be Yilin Zhong. Therefore, I not only like her novels, but also appreciate her as a person. Because for me, being a good person is more important than being a good writer.
Xing An, Literary critic, former editor-in-chief of "Beijing Literature"
Yilin Zhong has published a few novels before going abroad. "London Love Story" is her first novel written in the UK. I was a bit surprised after reading it, because she wrote a love story in a distinctive way that sets it apart from traditional ones, and this was rare quality for a young writer.
Wang Gan, Literary Critic, Editor-in-Chief of "Chinese Literature Selection" magazine
Among the novels I have read, few can write about the loneliness and solitude of love like Yilin Zhong. This is a very unique inner experience, coming from London, the city that once gave us many fantasies and and was enveloped in a fog of mystery and sadness.
Xie Xizhang, Literary critic
Preface by Yilin Zhong: The City Conquered by Love
In this city where I live, the entire sky becomes sentimental. When I cry, it becomes grey. When I smile, it becomes blue.
Yes, everything is so natural. We and the life we face. Every day. Every day there are things you should do, tasks you should complete and decisions you should make, work you should work and rest you should rest. All those orders of life seem to have become an unshakable theorem.
Yet, love is inevitable. This might be the only accident in your life. When love happens, you find that your whole life has changed. You put on your new dress and see yourself in the window of street stores. You smile all the time, you are happy, you are beautiful, and in an instant, even the air in the city becomes sweet, only because you fall in love.
But there are also times when love withers. Then all your days are painted with tragic colours. You miss that person, you are sad, you are heartbroken, and even painful, but everything just seems to have vanished, with no trace. When you leave the love that is about to leave, you suddenly find that love is a non-existence. Love is like a cholera, which easily occupies you and then leaves. One day you cannot even prove it used to exist in your life.
In this chaotic age, what else can make we forget, or remember?
Thus, at the end of the time, when the sky of the whole city was frozen, only love, conquered our territory effortlessly. In the city conquered by love, men and women in love are like maniacs infected with cholera, wandering and lingering on the edge of love and not love, demonstrating the last existence of love in their desperate form.