"Teeming with heart-rending secrets, divided loyalties, decisions that devastate through time, and bonds that can’t be broken, Vanessa Chan’s The Storm We Made debut is at once an un-put-down-able family saga, and a poignant portrayal of the brutalities of war."
The story begins in 1945, in the context of the Japanese occupiers of Malaya having “killed more people in three years than the British colonisers had in fifty”, at a time “when teenage boys had begun to disappear”.
It’s also a time when all three of Cecily’s children face danger. While her eldest daughter works in a tea house visited by Japanese soldiers, her youngest, Jasmin, has had her hair chopped off and is confined to the basement to keep her safe from predatory men. Into this, her son Abel vanishes on his fifteenth birthday.
Through a second timeline that flips back to 1935, we discover secrets from Cecily’s past, to the time she worked as an informant. As the two narratives meet, tragedy compels Cecily to reconnect with faces from her past, and to confront actions she took some ten years ago.
Stark, lyrical and skilfully woven, The Storm We Made is illuminating on history, and acutely honest on the complex workings of the human heart.
| Primary Genre | Family Drama |
| Other Genres: | |
| Recommendations: |
