Description
Author: Vanessa Chan
Format: Trade Paperback C Format
Publication date: 04/01/2024
Imprint: HODDER & STOUGHTON
ISBN: 9781399712583
Her decision changed history.
Now her family must survive it.
Destined to become a modern-day classic, The Storm We Made is a dazzling saga about the power of familial love in the face of the horrors of war, for fans of Pachinko and All the Light We Cannot See.
‘I’ll never forget this book’ JESSAMINE CHAN
‘One of the most powerful debuts I’ve ever read. A storytelling star is born’ TRACY CHEVALIER
‘A striking, moving exploration of good and evil, it is a novel that will stay with you’ CECILE PIN
‘Exceptionally brave, heart-breaking, beautiful, and moving. A significant contribution to world’s literature’ NGUYEN PHAN QUE MAI
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Japanese-occupied Malaya, 1945.
Cecily Alcantara’s children are in terrible danger.
Her eldest child Jujube, who works at a tea house frequented by drunk Japanese soldiers, becomes angrier by the day.
Jasmin, the youngest, lives confined in a basement for her own safety.
And her son, Abel, has disappeared without a trace.
Cecily knows two things: that this is all her fault; and that her family must never learn the truth.
Sue Reid, Read by Reid –
Powerful, raw and confronting, ‘The Storm We made’ exposes betrayals that are driven by ideals and the indigenous victims of power play in Malaya 1935-1945.
Born and raised in Malaysia, author Vanessa Chan draws from stories gleaned from her paternal grandparents. The years under the brutal, harsh regime of the Japanese Imperial Army. Superbly written with authentic characters of Cecily and husband Gordon, Jujube, Abel, Jasmine, General Fujiwara, Mr Takahashi, Lina, Freddie and co in Bintang, Kuala Lumpur. In the brutality of war, they are still mothers desperate to protect their families; sisters and brothers trying to grow into adulthood and children making sense of their altered surroundings.
In their pursuit to survive and tame fear we see familiar human responses, and this is Vanessa Chan’s strength in her debut tale.
Read more reviews from Read by Reid here.