Sisters Under the Rising Sun by Heather Morris

My thoughts

I've read a couple of this author's books and wept through them as I did a lot of this one. 

A ship is downed and all aboard have to do their best to swim, float on wood, or possibly in life boats. Two sisters, Norah and Ena, and Norah's husband John are on the Vyner Brooke merchant ship along with many others fleeing their country. They are no longer safe. Norah and John had sent their daughter away with her aunt. To be safe. When they are taken prisoner by the Japanese their lives will never be the same. All the things that happen to them and others are so horrible. 

You meet the nurses from Australia also. This story is about them and what all they did to help everyone in this POW camp. Sister Nesta James who is in charge of the nurses is a force to be dealt with. You get to know her. You will admire her and look up to her even though she is only a bit over four feet tall. Her and Norah become the best of friends and help each other many times. 

Though there are no gas chambers where these women are many die. When the nurses start dying it's so heartbreaking. They are not even suppose to be there. They are suppose to be protected in wartime. Nothing good comes from war. There is a lot going on. Starvation, sickness, friendships, loss. Such sadness.

You learn about a side of the war that you may not have read about. How the Japanese soldiers treated their prisoners. What they expected and what they would do if denied anything. To starve a group of human beings in such a way is horrifying. What happened in this story is so sad. And it's all true. It's not made up. 

This book is well written and so well researched. It is about prisoners of war. How it can happen. It did happen. It should not have though. 

Make sure you read the Author's Notes at the end. You learn so much about each of the key characters in this book. Each person who was in this horrible camp. What happened to them. It's very interesting. 

This book will make you shed lots of tears. No way around that if you have a heart. But it's good. It's worth reading. 

Thank you #NetGalley, #HeatherMorris, #StMartinsPress for this ARC. This is my own true thoughts about this book.

4.5 stars. 

Synopsis

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.