Natalie Tan’s Book of Luck and Fortune, by Roselle Lim, is based on her childhood. Lim, who was born in the Philippines and immigrated to Canada as a child, remembers Filipino folktales she heard from her grandmother.

“Growing up in a household where Chinese superstition mingled with Filipino Catholicism, I devoured books about mythology, which shaped the fantasies in my novels,” said Lim, who now lives in north Scarborough.

The book is about Natalie Tan who returns home to San Francisco after learning about her mother’s death. Tan is surprised to learn she inherited her grandmother’s restaurant. According to the neighbourhood seer, Tan needs to cook three recipes from her grandmother’s cookbook to help her struggling neighbours before the restaurant will succeed. But Tan wants no part of it and resents the neighbours for not helping her take care of her mother while growing up. Thanks to a new friend and budding romance, Tan realizes her neighbours have always been supportive of her.