Is it possible to grasp the many faces of love—or to accept that sometimes, love is simply a tangle of unspeakable emotions?

Twenty-nine-year-old Fuyu-shan and her childhood companion Lin Xuanyong have been intertwined since before their births—literally companions in their mothers' wombs. Since childhood, they roamed freely—from forests to fertile fields, from babbling streams to endless shores. As they grew, unspoken feelings shimmered quietly between them. What appears to be profound destiny, however, conceals deeper truths that are anything but coincidental.

At fifteen, that incident changed everything—the two young people got caught by adults when they were about to explore each other's bodies. It severed all contact between them. Many years later, an old friend of Lin Xuanyong, Qiao Yanshu becomes the catalyst for their reunion in the mountains. Together, the three of them hiked up to Taiwan’s Jiaming Lake. With each step along the trail and every night spent camping beneath the stars, they listened—patiently, quietly—to the whispers of the forest, the murmur of the mountains, and the stirrings of their own hearts.

Weaving together the bonds between three individuals, three different altitudes of pursuit, and triangular relationships that exist not only among the young protagonists but also in the previous generation—between two mothers whose bond runs deeper than sisterhood and the man who stands between them. The pattern extends even further to an old hunter, and figures from different dimensions of time and space.

More than Words is a mesmerizing debut novel that weaves together themes of love, youth, and self-discovery against the breathtaking backdrop of Taiwan’s mountain landscapes. Told through the intimate first-person voice of Fu Yu-shan, this poignant coming-of-age story explores the many forms love can take—from a complicated affair between parents, to the quiet loneliness of an only child, the fluidity of sexual orientation, the relentless pace of everyday life, and the setbacks and regrets that shape us.