First published 2009
Gail's world crumbles when the man she has loved for years betrays her. A young Canadian journalist of Malaysian heritage, she channels her pain into investigation, determined to uncover the truth about the woman who destroyed her parents' marriage decades earlier. Her search pulls her between continents and generations, from the lush forests of Borneo where Japanese invaders once brought gunpowder and death, to the strange light that falls across Dutch polders. As Gail digs deeper, she unearths a love story that survived the passage of years and a family secret that no one ever dared speak aloud. Her personal quest becomes something larger, connecting her present heartbreak to the hidden wounds of war and the choices her family made to survive.
Genres: literary-fiction, historical-fiction, 21st-century, family-drama
Vibes: emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: personal-quest, unreliable-narrator
Setting: Borneo, Canada, Dutch Polders, Malaysia
Period: 20th-century, 21st-century
248 pages · Paperback · Humanitas Fiction
Content warnings: war