The Bungalow
A Novel
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4.6 • 7 Ratings
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- $12.99
Publisher Description
A sweeping World War II saga of thwarted love, murder, and a long-lost painting.
In the summer of 1942, twenty-one-year-old Anne Calloway, newly engaged, sets off to serve in the Army Nurse Corps on the Pacific island of Bora-Bora. More exhilarated by the adventure of a lifetime than she ever was by her predictable fiancé, she is drawn to a mysterious soldier named Westry, and their friendship soon blossoms into hues as deep as the hibiscus flowers native to the island. Under the thatched roof of an abandoned beach bungalow, the two share a private world-until they witness a gruesome crime, Westry is suddenly redeployed, and the idyll vanishes into the winds of war.
A timeless story of enduring passion from the author of Blackberry Winter and The Violets of March, The Bungalow chronicles Anne's determination to discover the truth about the twin losses-of life, and of love-that have haunted her for seventy years.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Jio's second novel (after The Violets of March) is a saccharine romance framed around WWII and the Tahitian island of Bora-Bora. A letter found by her grandchild in the trash spurs Anne Calloway Godfrey of Seattle to recount a wartime romance and the dissolution of a childhood friendship. Conflicted about her impending nuptials to Gerard Godfrey, the young Anne and her best friend Kitty enlist as nurses for the war effort. But once Anne reaches the beautiful island of Bora-Bora, she finds the other nurses, including Kitty, disappointingly man hungry. While Kitty becomes entangled in a dangerous romance with one soldier, Anne is drawn to another, Westry Green, an officer, due to a shared interest in a nearby deserted bungalow, considered cursed by the native Tahitians. Though the bungalow becomes the site of Anne and Westry's romantic rendezvous, Anne's cloying, self-righteous attitude, obnoxious behavior, and na ve mistakes in dealing with Westry make it hard for readers to buy their relationship. Meanwhile Kitty's romantic entanglements harden her and ruin her relationship with Anne. Jio attempts to deepen her story with the addition of a murder mystery but an overwhelming profusion of deadening wartime clich s makes for a dull, frustrating read.
