The Moonflower

The wife of a scientist fights for her marriage—and her husband's sanity—in postwar Japan in this novel by "a superb and gifted story teller" (Mary Higgins Clark).

 


When Jerome Talbot's brilliant career as an atomic physicist leads him once again to Japan, his wife, Marcia, knows it means yet another long separation, but she hopes to reunite with him soon. Confidently awaiting word to join him, she is blindsided when she receives a letter demanding divorce. Stunned and hurt, she leaves their home in Hawaii to confront Jerome in Kyoto, certain she'll get an explanation to heal her wounded heart. But when Marcia arrives, she can't be sure of anything . . .


 


Jerome has become a stranger—obsessed, cruel, unhinged, and resolved never to return home—committed only to his work, which reaches back to World War II. Even more peculiar, he's living in unusual intimacy with a a close-knit, unnervingly private Japanese family whom Marcia is forbidden to talk to and to whom Jerome seems not only beholden, but enslaved. Marcia resolves to stay in Kyoto until she discovers the secret driving her husband mad—and the truth behind a terrible legacy that could threaten both their lives.


 


A "brilliant, absorbing, [and] moving" novel of romantic suspense by a New York Times–bestselling, multiple award–winning author—who was herself born in Yokohama—The Moonflower is an authentic exploration of life in postwar Japan, as well as a chilling tale of guilt, family secrets, and a marriage at risk in the never-forgotten shadow of Hiroshima (Richmond Times-Dispatch).


 

This ebook features an illustrated biography of Phyllis A. Whitney including rare images from the author's estate.