The Fourth Daughter

The Fourth Daughter (2025) is a work of historical and contemporary fiction by Taiwanese American author Lyn Liao Butler. The novel follows Liv Kuo, a young chef struggling with trauma, who travels to Taiwan to help her grandmother search for her daughter, who was given away 63 years earlier; Liv's grandfather, believing that fourth daughters brought misfortune, secretly arranged the child's adoption. Told from multiple perspectives across dual timelines, the novel is a multigenerational family saga that explores themes including The Enduring Weight of Generational and Personal Trauma, Reckoning With the Past to Reclaim Identity, and Personal Healing Through Family and Cultural Connection. Butler is the author of several other novels, including the Amazon bestseller Someone Else’s Life (2023) and Red Thread of Fate (2022), a finalist for the WFWA Star Awards.

This guide refers to the 2025 Lake Union Publishing edition.

Content Warning: The source material and guide feature depictions of graphic violence, sexual content, physical abuse, emotional abuse, death, mental illness, and death by suicide.

Plot Summary

In 1959, in Taichung, Taiwan, a pregnant Yi-ping Wang recounts the year her fourth daughter was born, which was marked by misfortune: the collapse of the family home and the death of her nephew.  Her husband, Po-wei, is bitterly disappointed by the birth of a daughter instead of a son. He holds a cultural superstition that the number four is a curse and blames the baby for the family’s bad luck. Without Yi-ping's knowledge, Po-wei secretly gets rid of the child.

In the present day, Liv Kuo, a 35-year-old sous-chef, is struggling with the traumatic attack at her restaurant, 852, during which she was shot and witnessed the murder of her coworker, Cat. She has been living in self-imposed isolation in her Manhattan apartment. She receives a FaceTime call from her Ah-Ma (grandmother), Yi-ping, now living in Taiwan. Ah-Ma startles Liv by claiming she has seen her “fourth daughter.” She explains that her husband gave away their fourth child, Yili, when she was a toddler. Ah-Ma recently saw a woman whom she believes is Yili, identifying her by a distinctive heart-shaped birthmark. She asks Liv to come to Taiwan to help find her, revealing she has also taken a DNA test. Liv agrees to go to Taiwan to help Ah-Ma in the search.

Liv learns from her mother, Felicia, about their family's deep involvement with the Kuomintang (KMT) party during the White Terror era. She discovers that her grandfather was a high-level official responsible for the disappearance of dissidents.

Upon arriving in Taipei, a luggage cart crashes at the airport, triggering a severe panic attack that transports Liv back to the restaurant shooting. A man from her flight, Simon, a psychotherapist specializing in trauma, calmly talks her through the episode. As they are both headed to Taichung, Liv offers him a ride with the driver her grandmother sent, and they form a connection.

In Taichung, Liv settles in with Ah-Ma and begins filming her grandmother for her YouTube channel; they cook recipes from an old cookbook Ah-Ma started after Yili’s disappearance. Ah-Ma recounts her past, explaining that in 1961, her frantic search for Yili began after she learned that the adoptive family’s surname was Ong. Her rebellion against her husband’s family was quelled, however, when her sister-in-law warned that they could take her other children.

During her search, Ah-Ma met a neighbor, Lim Ziyi, a benshengren (native Taiwanese, as opposed to the KMT-affiliated mainland immigrants). Ziyi offered to help. Ah-Ma eventually learned from a medicine shop owner, Wong Tai Tai, that the Ong family fled Taiwan after the mother, Jin, was executed as a political prisoner.

In the present, Liv and Simon go on a date to a night market, where he helps her navigate her anxiety, and their attraction deepens. He shares that his career was motivated by the death by suicide of his best friend, Ken, and he is in Taiwan for Ken's grandfather Ang-Li's funeral. Later, Liv and Ah-Ma seek help from Simon’s friends: Ken’s aunt, Clare Shih, and mother, Genevieve Huang. However, when Clare learns that Ah-Ma was married to Po-wei, she becomes hostile and asks them to leave.

Following the rejection, they visit Ziyi. Ziyi recounts how she helped Yi-ping escape Taiwan in 1979. Her husband discovered her role, beat her nearly to death, and banished her to a remote village. Twelve years later, after he harmed their daughter, Ziyi and her housekeeper, Ah-Ji, poisoned him, making his death look like a heart attack.

Ah-Ma’s DNA results arrive, showing a parent/child match with a woman named Hsu-Min Chen. Liv finds her on Facebook, and Hsu-Min confirms that a stranger recently called her Yili on the street. After Liv and Simon share their first kiss, she shows him the profile. Simon is stunned: Hsu-Min is Sue Huang, Clare's sister and his late friend Ken's aunt.

The narrative shifts to the journal of Sue’s adoptive father, Ang-Li Ong, a journalist. In 1961, his wife, Jin, brings home Yili as a shim-pua (a girl adopted to be a future bride for a son). Ang-Li soon discovered that Jin was having an affair with Po-wei, who had given her his daughter.

Jin was arrested for espionage. Before her execution, she confessed everything to Ang-Li, including that their eldest daughter, Clare, is Po-wei's biological child. Po-wei had Jin arrested to silence her when she threatened to expose the affair, but his father refused to intervene when the charges were mistakenly escalated, leading to her death sentence.

Liv and Simon rush to Clare’s apartment, where Clare confirms that Sue is Yili and that her father, Ang-Li, changed their surname from Ong to Huang to protect them after their mother’s execution. She gives Ah-Ma Ang-Li’s journal. Reading it, Ah-Ma also learns that Clare is her stepdaughter. Sue is contacted and arrives for a tearful, emotional reunion with Ah-Ma after 63 years. At a celebration dinner, the sound of a breaking bowl triggers another panic attack for Liv. Supported by her friends and family, she finally accepts that she needs professional help.

Ang-Li's journal concludes with details of the family's escape to Georgia. It reveals that he long believed Yi-ping was a monster because Wong Tai Tai had mistakenly told him she overheard Yi-ping saying she hated Yili. Liv and Simon’s relationship deepens during an overnight trip to Sun Moon Lake, where she finally confesses the full extent of her survivor's guilt.

A production company offers Liv and Ah-Ma a cooking show, based on their viral videos. To be near Liv, Simon accepts a teaching position in Taipei. Sue/Yili gives Ah-Ma a letter she wrote in eighth grade to the mother she never knew, expressing her deep longing for their reunion. The novel closes with a family dinner, where Ah-Ma shares the letter with Liv, finally at peace.