Sisters Under the Rising Sun, Heather Morris
Sisters Under the Rising Sun, Heather Morris
23 Rating(s)
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Sisters Under the Rising Sun
A Novel

Author: Heather Morris

Narrator: Laura Carmichael

Unabridged: 10 hr 59 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 10/24/2023


Synopsis

This program is read by Laura Carmichael, who plays Lady Edith Crawley in Downton Abbey. It also includes a dedication, author's note, and two afterwords, all read by the author, as well as two songs by the Sydney Women’s Vocal Orchestra with clips from both songs throughout the narration.

A phenomenal novel of resilience and survival from bestselling author of The Tattooist of Auschwitz, Heather Morris.

In the midst of World War II, an English musician, Norah Chambers, places her eight-year-old daughter Sally on a ship leaving Singapore, desperate to keep her safe from the Japanese army as they move down through the Pacific. Norah remains to care for her husband and elderly parents, knowing she may never see her child again.

Sister Nesta James, a Welsh Australian nurse, has enlisted to tend to Allied troops. But as Singapore falls to the Japanese she joins the terrified cargo of people, including the heartbroken Norah, crammed aboard the Vyner Brooke merchant ship. Only two days later, they are bombarded from the air off the coast of Indonesia, and in a matter of hours, the Vyner Brooke lies broken on the seabed.

After surviving a brutal 24 hours in the sea, Nesta and Norah reach the beaches of a remote island, only to be captured by the Japanese and held in one of their notorious POW camps. The camps are places of starvation and brutality, where disease runs rampant. Sisters in arms, Norah and Nesta fight side by side every day, helping whoever they can, and discovering in themselves and each other extraordinary reserves of courage, resourcefulness and determination.

Sisters under the Rising Sun is a story of women in war: a novel of sisterhood, bravery and friendship in the darkest of circumstances, from the multimillion-copy bestselling author of The Tattooist of Auschwitz, Cilka's Journey and Three Sisters.

A Macmillan Audio production from St. Martin’s Press.

About Heather Morris

HEATHER MORRIS is a native of New Zealand, now resident in Australia. For several years, while working in a large public hospital in Melbourne, she studied and wrote screenplays, one of which was optioned by an Academy Award-winning screenwriter in the US. In 2003, Heather was introduced to an elderly gentleman who ‘might just have a story worth telling’. The day she met Lale Sokolov changed both their lives. Their friendship grew and Lale embarked on a journey of self-scrutiny, entrusting the innermost details of his life during the Holocaust to her. Heather originally wrote Lale’s story as a screenplay – which ranked high in international competitions – before reshaping it into her debut novel, The Tattooist of Auschwitz.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Canadian Jen on November 10, 2023

With the WWII stories saturating the reading world, a story needs to give readers a new and different angle. This is one that does that but this is also based on real events and real people. When the Japanese entered the war in 1942, many evacuees tried to get out of Singapore. Some were luckier than......more

Goodreads review by Debra on October 12, 2023

Survival and friendship. Women being held in a notorious Japanese POW camp during WWII is another frightening example of brutalities that occur/occurred during wartime. I had both the book and the audiobook versions but mainly listened to the audiobook. I recommended the audiobook as the female chara......more

Goodreads review by Karren on August 27, 2023

Norah and John Chambers have to make a difficult choice, they send their eight year old daughter Sally with Norah’s older sister and her two sons who are leaving Singapore. The Japanese army are quickly invading the Pacific, Norah and John, her sister Ena Murray and brother-in-law Ken remain behind......more

Goodreads review by Lindsay L on May 10, 2024

3 stars. An informative read sharing an important part of history. WWII. Families are fleeing Singapore to get away from Japanese army invasion. A ship carrying fleeing civilians and nurses is attacked leaving the evacuees lost at sea and eventually washed up on a remote island in Indonesia where the......more

Goodreads review by Marilyn (not getting notifications) on November 04, 2023

Sisters Under the Rising Sun by Heather Morris was a very compelling book. It was based on actually events and real people. Sisters Under the Rising Sun detailed the unimaginable atrocities and cruelty the Japanese army inflicted upon women and children in their POW camps during World War II. The Ja......more