Hong Kong, 1942 – A Family divided – two desperate journeys.
Marie Broom and her husband Vincent enjoy a pleasant life on Hong Kong Island. Vincent is a New Zealander. Marie, born in Macau, is of Portuguese and Chinese ancestry. Married for ten years, the couple have four adored children – daughters aged 9, 8 and 6 and a baby son of 14 months. Vincent’s job as a marine engineer often takes him overseas.
It is December 8, 1941. In a few hours their life will change forever.
Marie wakes in the family’s home on Fortress Hill to the sound of bombs falling. Within days, Japanese soldiers have invaded the island. Their building is surrounded. Most British residents are rapidly interned. Vincent is in Singapore. Soon he too is trapped as that island comes under attack.
Marie, the children and the family’s four live-in amahs must face the increasingly brutal Japanese occupation alone.
This page-turning novel, based on a true story, tells of Marie’s struggle to save her children from danger, disease and starvation in the colony that Winston Churchill was happy to abandon to its fate, and of Vincent’s incredible attempt to rescue them. Legendary figures appear, from New Yorker correspondent Emily Hahn to Australian Lindsay Ride, founder of British Army Aid Group, American aviator Claire Chennault of the Flying Tigers, and Scotsman John Keswick, head of Far East trading giant Jardine, Matheson. But at its heart this is a story of the hard and heart-wrenching decisions that must be made in wartime.
About the Author:
Roderick Fry is a prize-winning New Zealand designer, who has worked in Taiwan,
Hong Kong and Shanghai and now lives in Paris. From 1999, he retraced the route
taken by his maternal grandfather across China during the Second World War to
rescue his wife and children in Japanese-occupied Hong Kong, beginning a project
to write a novel based on their story. He is founder and creative director of
sustainable design company Moaroom.