The Storm We Made (Unabridged)
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4.3 • 21 Ratings
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
NATIONAL BESTSELLER * A GOOD MORNING AMERICA BOOK CLUB PICK * LONGLISTED FOR THE CENTER FOR FICTION 2024 FIRST NOVEL PRIZE
In this “espionage-laden family epic” (Vanity Fair), an ordinary housewife becomes an unlikely spy—and her dark secrets will test even the most unbreakable ties.
Malaya, 1945. Cecily Alcantara’s family is in terrible danger: her fifteen-year-old son, Abel, has disappeared, and her youngest daughter, Jasmin, is confined in a basement to prevent being pressed into service at the comfort stations. Her eldest daughter Jujube, who works at a tea house frequented by drunk Japanese soldiers, becomes angrier by the day.
Cecily knows two things: that this is all her fault; and that her family must never learn the truth.
A decade prior, Cecily had been desperate to be more than a housewife to a low-level bureaucrat in British-colonized Malaya. A chance meeting with the charismatic General Fujiwara lured her into a life of espionage, pursuing dreams of an “Asia for Asians.” Ten years later as the war reaches its apex, her actions have caught up with her. Now her family is on the brink of destruction—and she will do anything to save them.
Told from the perspectives of four unforgettable characters, The Storm We Made spans years of pain, triumph, and perseverance. “The tenderness in its details, the ordinary ways that these characters love and laugh in the face of the extraordinary…Chan shows us, with clarity and care, how the truest mirror comes from the intimacy of human connection” (The New York Times Book Review).
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
A mother’s choices threaten her family in this harrowing historical epic. In 1935, Cecily is a young wife and mother living under British colonial rule in Malaya, a peninsula in Southeast Asia—and she has a secret. She’s been passing information to her lover, a Japanese general named Fujiwara who seduces her with promises to free Malaya from the yoke of the British Empire. But when Japanese soldiers invade the peninsula, a horrifying conflict erupts. With her family split apart and her country plunged into desperation, it’s only a matter of time until Cecily’s part in these awful happenings comes back to haunt her. Vanessa Chan’s heart-wrenching debut follows as Cecily’s children struggle to survive in hidden cellars, labor camps, and “comfort stations” in their occupied nation. Malaysian actress Samantha Tan narrates the tale with a soft, melodic tone that brings home the vulnerability of the complex characters. This is a timely and unflinching portrayal of what it means to live under colonial power.
