Sisters Under the Rising Sun by Heather Morris

Narration by Laura Carmichael (actress that portrayed Lady Edith Crawley on Downton Abbey) was well done. Thanks to NetGalley and Macmillan Audio for the ARC audiobook to read.

Heather Morris has written another good read and this time it is a captivating story of women in war. Based on true events, Sisters Under the Rising Sun is a story of sisterhood, survival, bravery and friendship.

The Japanese are invading the Pacific and people are boarding ships to leave Singapore. After the sinking of their ship and being stranded in the ocean for 24 hours some have made it to land; when the Japanese find them and take them to a POW camp and separate the men and women. Norah and her sister are together along with, Sister Nester James, a Welsh Australian nurse and others. From one harrowing experience to another, this story tells of the will for survival and the comradeship and strength these women show under the dreadful circumstances. They come together to make the best of what their lives have become.

I have not read any story about the women in POW camps and you get to know and remember them for their strength and compassion in the face of adversity. Please listen/read the authors note at the end and we learn what happened to some of these survivors after their release.

I first became aware of the story told in Sisters Under the Rising Sun in the late 1990s, when I viewed the movie Paradise Road, which featured Glenn Close, Frances McDormand, Wendy Hughes, and Juliana Margulies, among others. The story of the imprisonment of mostly Western and Australian women by the Japanese on Sumatra in WWII has stayed with me through all these intervening years. In her book, with more room in which to work than a 2-hour movie, author Morris does a masterful job of taking readers and listeners more deeply into each character and into the struggles and challenges they all faced in order to survive. As awful as the descriptions of the punishments, the struggle for even a handful of infested rice, and the medical conditions brought on by the camps' conditions and the heat and infestation of the tropical jungles in which they were situated, I could not turn away. Most touching is the nature of the community that the women built, each helping others to survive or, when death was inevitable, to be buried with dignity. The leadership displayed by Australian nurse Nesta James and American Gertrude Hinch was critical to so many women surviving, and the author pays them and others tribute at the end of the book. The centerpiece of the community's survival was the choir and the "human voice orchestra" that Norah Chambers and Margaret Frieburg organized and led. Conservatory trained, Nora had the rare ability to remember the scoring of many classical pieces of music and she scrounged for paper and writing implements to create written parts for the many voices involved. A huge bonus of the audio version is hearing snippets of pieces they performed throughout the novel and then to hear two pieces sung by a contemporary human voice orchestra based in Sydney, Australia. Readers and listeners alike will be drawn to this book because of its author and/or its subject and they won't be disappointed. Highly recommended.

This was a very well-told story of women captured and held in Japanese POW camps. Although the subject was difficult, I liked learning more about this part of WWII. Hearing these stories is important to understand history and survival. Heather Morris does an excellent job of pairing human resilience with the travesties of war times. I especially enjoyed the author’s note at the end of the book, the afterwards from the families, and the recordings of the songs mentioned in the story.

Thank you to Heather Morris and NetGalley for the opportunity to listen to an advanced copy of the audiobook! The sound quality was excellent and the narrator, actress Laura Carmichael, was pleasantly familiar.

Okay, I just finished listening to this audiobook. You need to preorder it! I don't have words to do the book justice. It is based on real women and their encampment in Japanese territories. The book gave me goosebumps. It made me cry and cheer. The narration is some of the best. Plus, there are moments of songs. I'm having a serious book hangover. One of the best books I've read in a long time. It is written by the author of The Tattooist of Auschwitz, Heather Morris. I wish I could give it more than 5⭐️

Thank you #NetGalley, #MacmillanAudio, #HeatherMorris, #LauraCarmichael and #SistersUndertheRisingSun for the advance audiobook for my honest review.

Heather Morris has yet again written another unputdownable book which right from the start had me completely fascinated. Following the lives of women who having. escaped war torn Singapore after its captured by Japan during WW2.. When the merchant ship they are on is brought down by the Japanese they are eventually captured on an Indonesian island and brought to a Japanese POW camp. These women were the bravest of the brave, How they coped during their 19 months of imprisonment was nothing short of a miracle. Excellently written this book is a must read .

Rounded up from 4.5
A group of expats fleeing Singapore on a merchant ship soon falls to the Japanese in 1942. On board was a nurse, Nesta, Norah and John, and many civilians and military personnel. Many drowned, but Nesta and Norah survive to reach a beach controlled by the Japanese. They remain prisoners for nearly four years, fighting to survive.
I absolutely adored The Tattooist of Auschwitz, so when I saw this one pop up on NetGalley, I pounced on it. This is a historical fiction, a story of resilience, solidarity, strength and courage, a horrible yet beautiful story, just as wonderful, researched and heart-wrenching as The Tattooist of Auschwitz. Heather masterfully depicts how something beautiful and deeply human can come out of inhumane atrocities. The narration in the audio book was amazing and heartfelt, and I absolutely loved the musical numbers.
I received an advance review of this book for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

This is the story of English civilians and Australian nurses during World War II, and revolves around the fall of Singapore to the Japanese. This is a fascinating storyline about a horrific time in history, and while I enjoyed the story, I would have enjoyed it more if there weren’t quite as many viewpoints. There didn’t seem to be any break in the narration between the thoughts, words and actions of the characters in the story.