I love historical fiction, especially when it opens a period or a place in history I knew nothing about, and that is the case with this novel which takes place from 1935–1945, in Malaya (now Malaysia).

In the 1945 sections, Cecily is trying to keep her family alive under the Japanese occupation of Malaya: food is scarce, her teenage son has been conscripted to a labor camp building railroads in Burma, her eldest daughter serves in a tea house trying to avoid working in a “comfort house,” and her youngest daughter remains innocent of their world caving in, hidden in the family basement–away from Japanese soldiers seeking young girls. 

In the 1935 sections, Cecily has not yet had her third child, she is married (though bored), and she meets a Japanese man–Fujiwara (his real name, though he goes by an alias)–who has a vision of Malaya as “an Asia for Asians” instead of British colonial rule. Believing in this vision, and a better future for their country, Cecily agrees to feed him information from her husband, who works for the British government in the public works department with knowledge of geography and infrastructure. Her spying and her hope for an independent Malaya after a Japanese overthrow of the British infuse an energy and purpose she previously lacked. 

But Kuala Lumpur ends up worse under Japanese occupation than under British rule—more violent, more desperate, more powerless. The story ends in the fall of 1945 at the conclusion of World War II (but Malaya did not become independent until 1957 and not renamed Malaysia until 1963. Singapore–at the Southern tip–became an independent country in 1965).

I found much of the story compelling, with characters that I cared about and mostly good writing. The author does a great job of describing the physical climate–its rain, humidity, mud, and trash–as well as the emotional climate where women feel powerless and men feel like suck ups to the British government, but somehow there was also a distance between the characters and the reader. I wanted to feel more.

Final comment: the title of this book does not do it justice. No idea why an editor didn’t come up with a better title and a better cover. The book and the writing far outshine the title and the tropical vacation feel of the cover.