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marilynw 's review for:
Sisters Under the Rising Sun
by Heather Morris
Sisters Under the Rising Sun by Heather Morris
Narrated by Laura Carmichael
I'm so glad I was able to hear the audiobook of this story. Music plays a part in the telling of this story since an English musician, Norah Chambers, uses her extensive musical talents to help the women prisoners of the Japanese army endure their terrible situation by creating a voice orchestra, making use of the talents of the captive women who could sing or act as instruments, using the sounds of their voices. Missionary Margaret Dryburgh was her partner in creating this choir/orchestra along with the many other creative groups that Margaret started while the women were in captivity. Both women remember music from memory and also wrote music and songs for the women to perform. It is amazing the life that these creative and inspiring women live while they were suffering great deprivation during their long captivity. During the story and after the story is over, we get to hear the songs and music performed and I could not help getting teary eyed, knowing these women could do so much when they had so little. What they did have was each other and they made the most of their talents, whether it was nursing, writing, cleaning sewerage, growing what little they could with what little they had, squeezing meals out of meager food supplies, or picking weevils out of their rice while joking that at least the weevils supplied protein to their diet.
At the beginning of the story we meet Norah, her sister, and her husband as they are evacuating Singapore on the Vyner Brooke, a ship that is bombed and sunk by the Japanese. Also on the ill fated ship was Nesta James, one of 64 Australian evacuating nurses. Those that survive the shipwreck and attacks by the Japanese, once on land, are captured and taken to the first of many POW camps where they well try to stay alive despite starvation and brutality. This group of women lived over three and half years under these severe conditions with hundreds of women dying before being released. We meet many heroic nurses, missionaries, and other women with so many giving everything they had to help each other make it from one day to the next. These camps also contained children and great sacrifices were made when it came to food, in the hopes that the children could live through the internment.
I appreciate the dedication, two afterwards, and author's note at the end of the book. I always want to know more when I read historical fiction and Heather Morris supplied me with so much that I wanted to know and gave me an idea of where to look for more about these amazing women. Laura Carmichael narrated the story beautifully. Despite the extreme sadness I felt at times, there were also happy moments, which just goes to show the resiliency of humans during great suffering.
Pub Oct 24 2023
Thank you to Macmillan Audio and NetGalley for this ARC.
Narrated by Laura Carmichael
I'm so glad I was able to hear the audiobook of this story. Music plays a part in the telling of this story since an English musician, Norah Chambers, uses her extensive musical talents to help the women prisoners of the Japanese army endure their terrible situation by creating a voice orchestra, making use of the talents of the captive women who could sing or act as instruments, using the sounds of their voices. Missionary Margaret Dryburgh was her partner in creating this choir/orchestra along with the many other creative groups that Margaret started while the women were in captivity. Both women remember music from memory and also wrote music and songs for the women to perform. It is amazing the life that these creative and inspiring women live while they were suffering great deprivation during their long captivity. During the story and after the story is over, we get to hear the songs and music performed and I could not help getting teary eyed, knowing these women could do so much when they had so little. What they did have was each other and they made the most of their talents, whether it was nursing, writing, cleaning sewerage, growing what little they could with what little they had, squeezing meals out of meager food supplies, or picking weevils out of their rice while joking that at least the weevils supplied protein to their diet.
At the beginning of the story we meet Norah, her sister, and her husband as they are evacuating Singapore on the Vyner Brooke, a ship that is bombed and sunk by the Japanese. Also on the ill fated ship was Nesta James, one of 64 Australian evacuating nurses. Those that survive the shipwreck and attacks by the Japanese, once on land, are captured and taken to the first of many POW camps where they well try to stay alive despite starvation and brutality. This group of women lived over three and half years under these severe conditions with hundreds of women dying before being released. We meet many heroic nurses, missionaries, and other women with so many giving everything they had to help each other make it from one day to the next. These camps also contained children and great sacrifices were made when it came to food, in the hopes that the children could live through the internment.
I appreciate the dedication, two afterwards, and author's note at the end of the book. I always want to know more when I read historical fiction and Heather Morris supplied me with so much that I wanted to know and gave me an idea of where to look for more about these amazing women. Laura Carmichael narrated the story beautifully. Despite the extreme sadness I felt at times, there were also happy moments, which just goes to show the resiliency of humans during great suffering.
Pub Oct 24 2023
Thank you to Macmillan Audio and NetGalley for this ARC.