Note: I received a copy of this book in exchange for my honest opinion. Thank you, NetGalley and publishers.

The Light Between Us is a time travel romance like you’ve never read before. The hero and heroine live a century apart, communicating first by happenstance and an old photograph. Two souls are intertwined by destiny in this magical realism historical fiction blend. Partially inspired by Asian folktales like the Weaver Maid and the Cowherd, this is a love story you’ll never forget.

thank you so much for this galley of such a beautiful book! i really appreciate it as i enjoyed this one very much.

I really, really wanted to like this book because when I read the synopsis, I requested an ARC right away. But somehow, I struggled with the story -even though it had all the ingredients that I usually look for in a novel. Add to that the fact that it is set in Singapore and explores its history - I was sure I'd fall in love with it. But I didn't. I didn't really connect to the characters and found the love story hard to believe. It's beautifully written, but overall, I feel like this book had so much potential but didn't deliver in the end. 2.5 stars from me. Thank you to netgalley for the ARC!

The Light Between Us had its moments, but overall, it left me with mixed feelings. Chiew's writing is lyrical and evocative, capturing the complexities of love and loss with a delicate touch. The story weaves together past and present, exploring the enduring impact of a childhood friendship. While there were some truly poignant scenes, I found the pacing a bit uneven at times. The narrative meandered, and I sometimes struggled to maintain my focus. It's a heartfelt story, but it didn't quite fully resonate with me.

The time settings and mystery of how the two main characters communicated was really interesting but Injust did not feel the emotion that the two of them are supposed to be feeling. Might just be me.

Set in Singapore, this historical urban fantasy is about a photographer and an archivist from two time points.

Wang Tian Wei is a photographer from the 1920s, whilst Charlie is a photograph archivist in 2019. Despite the time span, they are able to communicate with each other, simply through their every day setups. Whilst dealing with issues in their own lives, both try and make sense of this connection, physically and spiritually. They fall in love.

This story reminds me of the 2006 movie The Lake House starring Sandra Bullock and Keanu Reeves, albeit the time separation is a hundred years. But this story is more. It is evident the author has done a lot of research for this book. So much is packed between the pages, from the every lives of the immigrants to the intricate cultural diversity within the Chinese community, from the historical backdrop of the post-imperial China to the WW2. I enjoyed being whisked back to colonial Singapore, and then revisiting today's Singapore.

I was also struck by the author's lyrical style. I stopped and reread the beautiful sentences on several occasions. The pages turned easily. In addition, the author has also navigated through the vernacular complexities of living in the melting pot of cultures that is Singapore.

Thank you to Netgalley for a digital copy in exchange for an honest review.

Prologue Opening Line: A flash of lightning strobes across the clerestory of the Singapore Centre of Photography.
Chapter 1 Opening Line : Tian Wei starts his mornings with a breakfast of fried you tiao and a bowl of sweet velvety bean curd.

The Light Between Us is a Southeast Asian historical romance that transcends time and space, following an archivist's exploration of Singapore’s past through a supernatural connection.

One night, photography archivist Charlie Sze-Toh discovers a misdirected letter from Wang Tian Wei, a Chinese photographer from the 1920s colonial era. A mysterious digital folder ignites a conversation and a romance that spans lifetimes.

Read this if you enjoy:

✨ Chinese Mythology
✨ 20th-century colonial
✨ Speculation

Thank you so much to the author - Elaine Chiew as well as Divia and the team at Neem Tree Press for sending out the book to be reviewed!

3.5/5.

A unique Southeast Asian historical romance. I loved that time and space held little consequence to the romance. The letters that were sent and put into the sorry are beautiful to read, they had an understated nature to them. I also enjoyed the cultural aspects that are explored, particularly the feminism. Throughout there is also the question of what’s truth/reality and this being played with was a great addition to the time/space inconsistencies. Overall a lovely read. Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an ARC. This is a voluntary review of my own thoughts.

Weaving history, mysticism, and tense family dynamics into a compelling narrative, Chiew brings to life two versions of Singapore that are never meant to meet, and yet do. She writes with a distinct voice, sometimes bogged down with ostentatious vocabulary and forced wryness, but distinctive all the same. I definitely found myself more compelled by Charlie's POV rather than Tian Wei's, but I thought that the worldbuilding of Tian Wei's historical setting was well executed and vibrant in its own right. An effort was made to inject complexity and nuance into these characters, I recognized, but at most times they do fall somewhat flat and one-noted, which is a terrible shame considering the ingenious set-ups. This is especially glaring in terms of the main romance between our two leading characters - perhaps a limitation of their purely epistolary exchanges. I've read interesting discourse about Chiew's use of Mandarin/other dialects in the book, which I personally found refreshing and exciting to see in an English novel. I understand how some readers, especially those non-native to Singapore/Malaysia, would have difficulty grasping the intended effects at first but I think that Chiew has carefully set enough context clues and direction in the book for it to be a real issue.

As books go, I went in to this warily because I tend not to like WW2 (and adjacent) stories. But I also wanted to read this to support a SEA writer! So ok la #cubatry.

Excellent points:
I loved the writing and the language, the fluidity of moving between English and Malay and Chinese (of various dialects). I felt that it represented us so well. I am pretty much a banana, so I skimmed some of the Chinese phrases (note: I didn't realise there was a glossary at the end until I finished, since I was reading a digital arc), but I felt that Chiew was deft enough in her writing that you could pick up on what it was supposed to mean.

The only confusion I had was probably because of my own muddled language proficiency, where koon sah is apparently a TYPE of old Chinese dressing? I always thought it just meant pyjamas (i.e. koon = sleep, sah = clothes) HAHHAHAH. Also, Tangki as the Chinese (can't recall which dialect) term for the medium being possessed just kept me thinking of the Malay word "tangki", which is like a water tank, but that also makes sense because it's like a vessel kan. LOL

Content warning:
Slight implication of incest because of extended familial relationships, even though they're not blood related.

The setting and plot:
Yeah okay, so one of the reasons I figured I might give it a try is because there is a dual timeline of Charlie in the current day somehow reaching across the past to connect with Tian Wei in the 1920s. Which, I mean, is a cool concept. I liked it in Agnes Ong's Skyping Back in Time. But here...

So everything for Charlie is happening in the span of a few days, and at the longest stretch, maybe a month? But it's happening for Tian Wei over months and years (there's some fancy mathematical theory for this) which... I guess as a reader, I wasn't convinced their rather sporadic letters were enough for them to fall in love. It felt like first one or two letters were like hello who are you what's going on, then bam, oh the numerical-stars-are-aligned instalove.

And then there's a pretty long jump in time for Tian Wei, which (ugh) brings him to the 1940s and WW2, which YEAH. no. But this is a me thing, and also why I haven't read any TTE books (#sorrynotsorry).

Verdict:
If you're a historical fiction fan, especially around SEA WW2 stories, you'll probably love this! If you're a camera & photography nerd, you'll probably also love this! If you bangga Singapura and Malaysia (because come on, they were the same country back in those days) and you love codemixing, you'll also love this!

Note: I received a digital ARC of this book from Neem Tree Press via NetGalley. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.

Elegant writing that flowed well and an intriguing premise, although the genre with its speculative elements was not a preference of mine.

'Apophenia - the tendency to perceive connections or patterns between unrelated or random things'
‘the photograph is a forgotten object. we are fixated by its context alone; we forget its physicality’.
‘a photograph tells you very little. it masks reality’

I enjoyed this time-travelling historical novel and it kept me entertained throughout. Charlie’s character and time frame was easy (ish!) to follow and I enjoyed her sections of the book more than the 1920s section. It was written well and I was interested to know what happened next. The photographic theme was thoroughly engaging and I loved all the quotes about reality portraying through a photograph etc - it got me thinking! I thoroughly loved the historical element and plot twists throughout.

It was 3 stars for me because there were some negatives. I felt that the 1920s section had too many characters and they weren’t well explained so I got a tad confused about who was who! It also took me a few chapters to understand what was happening too, but overall enjoyed it! Thank you to Netgalley for allowing me to read this book in exchange for an honest review.

This book follows charlie in 2019 and tian wei in 1920 singapore as they somehow start up a letter correspondence through space and time, eventually falling in love. Let me tell you this premise had me SWOONING. Star crossed lovers (time crossed lovers?) are my favourite. I don't even like romance, but if there's a ton of mutual pining and lovers are fated to never be together, sign. me. up.

But the thing is, i never really believed in charlie and tian wei's love. They hardly seem to really question the way they're suddenly communicating even though they're a 100 years apart (and thinking about the logistics of it all made my brain ache) and they fall in love after pretty much one letter. Call me a cynic, but i didn't buy it. To me, a large part of the story (including their love story, but also many of the 'side quests' as i started calling them) felt like it happened simply for the plot. Charlie and tian wei simply fall in love because that's what the story is about. But there's too little depth behind it. There's no appareny reason for their characters to fall in love, nothing to fall in love with, other than the plot asking for it.

(Warning: spoilers ahead)

Despite the above, i still thought this was enjoyable up until the part where, get this, tian wei travels to the future, takes over the body of charlie's adoptive brother and... they sleep together. There are so many things wrong with this sequence of events that it fully pulled me out of the story, and i ended up skipping a lot afterwards because i just wanted it to be over.

The book posed a challenge for me to read. The content was difficult to grasp due to the writing style. Although I enjoy reading books with dual storylines, this one took longer to read than usual. I'm unsure if it's because the characters were not well-developed or if the author's writing style was not conducive to my reading style. The book was not an enjoyable read for me, perhaps due to the English translation being confusing. The numerous characters in the story made it difficult to grasp the overall meaning, and I found myself imagining translations when I couldn't understand the references. It's disappointing because I typically enjoy learning about different cultures through my reading, but this time it didn't work out.

with dual perspectives from modern singapore to asia in the 1920’s, you wonder how both are connected. both parties both in modern singapore and the 1920’s are searching for a japanese girl aiko.

the reader is instantly enticed into wanting to find out more. as history and modern times get intertwined together

this is a story about how a relationship transcends time and forms through letters somehow being sent through time.

as the story proceeds, family secrets are revealed, healing generational trauma.

i must say, the writing is absolutely stunning and flows really nicely. you can tell the author has researched singapore / asian history vastly.

if you like asian mythology and learning about asian cultures this book is a really wonderful read. it’s really beautiful and powerful.

An interesting subject and setting - I was keen to read this as I know Singapore and love ghost/time-slip stories. There is no doubt about the level of research that has gone into writing this book. This missed the mark for me, however, I found the writing clunky and at times simplistic.