The Song of the Jade Lily: A Novel
The Song of the Jade Lily: A Novel book cover

The Song of the Jade Lily: A Novel

Audio CD – Unabridged, May 14, 2019

Price
$19.99
Publisher
HarperCollins B and Blackstone Audio
Publication Date
ISBN-13
978-1982657734
Dimensions
5.8 x 1.2 x 5.7 inches
Weight
8.8 ounces

Description

Compelling, passionate, and admirable. --" Australian Women's Weekly" Kirsty Manning grew up in northern New South Wales, Australia. She has degrees in literature and communications and worked as an editor and publishing manager in book publishing for over a decade. A country girl with wanderlust, her travels and studies have taken her through most of Europe, the east, and west coasts of the United States as well as pockets of Asia. Kirsty's journalism and photography specializing in lifestyle and travel regularly appear in magazines, newspapers, and online. She lives in Australia.

Features & Highlights

  • Kirsty Manning weaves together little-known threads of World War II history, family secrets, the past and the present into a page-turning, beautiful novel."  Heather Morris, #1
  • New York Times
  • bestselling author of
  • The Tattooist of Auschwitz
  • A gripping historical novel that tells the little-known story of Jewish refugees who fled to Shanghai during WWII.
  • 1939
  • : Two young girls meet in Shanghai, also known as the Paris of the East . Beautiful local Li and Jewish refugee Romy form a fierce friendship, but the deepening shadows of World War II fall over the women as they slip between the city's glamorous French Concession district and the teeming streets of the Shanghai Ghetto. Yet soon the realities of war prove to be too much for these close friends as they are torn apart.
  • 2016:
  • Fleeing London with a broken heart, Alexandra returns to Australia to be with her grandparents, Romy and Wilhelm. Her grandfather is dying, and over the coming weeks Romy and Wilhelm begin to reveal the family mysteries they have kept secret for more than half a century. As fragments of her mother's history finally become clear, Alexandra struggles with what she learns while more is also revealed about her grandmother's own past in Shanghai.
  • After Wilhelm dies, Alexandra flies to Shanghai, determined to trace her grandparents' past. Peeling back the layers of their hidden lives, she is forced to question what she knows about her family and herself.
  • The Song of the Jade Lily
  • is a lush, provocative, and beautiful story of friendship, motherhood, the price of love, and the power of hardship and courage that can shape us all.

Customer Reviews

Rating Breakdown

★★★★★
30%
(484)
★★★★
25%
(404)
★★★
15%
(242)
★★
7%
(113)
23%
(371)

Most Helpful Reviews

✓ Verified Purchase

War Tragedies, Love Stories and Family Mysteries

I normally read histories or biographies but read “Song of the Jade Lily” for a book club. It is a story of a Jewish family that escapes from Vienna during the Nazi era and settles in Shanghai for the duration of the war. The main character is Alexandra, the adopted granddaughter of the escapees. At the start of the book, Alexandra is a commodities trader working in London, on her way to Shanghai, who is visiting her grandparents in Melbourne, Australia. The plot is interwoven war tragedies, loves stories and a search to unravel family mysteries. I will leave it at that.

Most of the people in the book club liked the book, although some, including me, had trouble keeping track of the characters. I enjoyed the parts about the escape from Austria and the settlement in China. The mystery of Alexandra trying to find her biological grandparents held my interest. Other than that, I found little entertainment in this work. Between the names, with Alexandra’s parents missing and the scenes jumping between the 1940s and 2016 and some of the action I really did not like the book. I had read about three-quarters of the book by the time of the book club meeting. After the meeting I considered stopping reading but continued because I hate quitting on a book until I get to the end and I was wanted to know if Alexandra would solve her ancestral riddle. I did stick with it to the end, but the only satisfaction I got out of finishing it was confirmation that I am not a quitter.
2 people found this helpful