Historical Fiction Asia

Singapore, 1930s Everyone thinks that thirty-one-year-old Shona Wells should get married: her overbearing father, her starry-eyed little sister, and the whole expat community in 1930s Singapore. But Shona wants independence and the freedom to choose her own way, to travel the world exploring nature. The last thing twenty-five-year-old Will Palmer needs is marriage. He’s too busy discovering new plant species in the remotest jungles in the world. But then, three days before Shona is due to sail back to England, she meets Will, and finds someone with the same passion for the natural world. ...

It's 1943. As air-raid sirens blare in Japanese-occupied Taiwan, eight-year-old Saburo is in no hurry to go home to the abuse he suffers at the hands of his parents and older brother. In the peach forests of Taoyuan, he encounters Yoshiko, whose loving family is like a glimpse of paradise for him. Their brief meeting is a memory he cherishes from that moment forward, and for years after he tries to locate her again. But when he finally does, she is by the side of his eldest brother and greatest rival.

First-hand reports of the most riveting anti-terror encounters in the wake of the 2016 surgical strikes, the men who hunted terrorists in a magical Kashmir forest where day turns to night, a pair of young Navy men who gave their all to save their entire submarine crew, the Air Force commando who wouldn't sleep until he had avenged his buddies, the tax babu who found his soul in a terrifying Special Forces assault on Pakistani terrorists, and many more. Their own stories, in their own words. Or of those who were with them in their final moments.

After the furious battles around Dak To and the horrific fight for Hill 875, Youth in Asia is a new novella of young Americans trapped in the jungles of Vietnam's Central Highlands in a war they did not understand. Youth In Asia relives the friendships, loyalties and betrayals of young men in combat, and for those that survive, the memories they carried home.

In Romancing the Heart of the Volcano, volcanologist Elena Pinto arrives in Indonesia to decode deadly signals from Mount Merapi—but her mission is shaken by Reza Dharma, a temple guardian bound to ancient traditions. As lava stirs and tensions rise, Elena and Reza must bridge science and faith—while resisting a growing attraction neither expected. Amid secrets, eruptions, and betrayal, love may be their only chance to survive the fire threatening to consume everything they hold dear.

Vietnam, 1969: Die Schwestern Trang und Quỳnh wachsen in einem Dorf auf, wo sie die Reisfelder ihrer verarmten Eltern bestellen. Als sie hören, in Saigon wäre es leicht, Arbeit zu finden, machen sich die jungen Frauen auf den Weg. In Saigon lernt Trang einen amerikanischen Soldaten kennen und stürzt sich in den Wirren des Krieges in eine Affäre, die nicht ohne Folgen bleibt.

The Chandaria family - emigrants from the Indian enclave of Nairobi - have flourished in America. Premchand, the father, is a doctor who has worked doggedly to grow his practice and give his family security; his wife, Urmila, runs a business importing artisanal Kenyan crafts; and their son, Sunil, has been accepted to a PhD program in philosophy at Harvard. But the parents have kept a very important secret from Sunil: his cousin, Bimal, is actually his older brother. When this hidden history is revealed by an unforeseen accident, and the entire family is forced to return to Nairobi.

1941. Following the Japanese invasion of Shanghai, the wealthy Tang family has settled in Hong Kong, believing it to be protected under British occupation. As the First Wife of the family, Mingzhu leads a glamorous, if at times lonely, existence—mothering the son of her husband’s concubine, overseeing her daughter Qiang’s education, and directing their household of servants, including her long-time confidante, Biyu. But when the Japanese invade Hong Kong, the paths of Mingzhu, Qiang, and Biyu wildly diverge.

Idaho Territory, June 1887. A small-town judge takes his young daughter fishing, and she catches a man. Another body surfaces, then another. The final toll: over 30 Chinese gold miners brutally murdered. Their San Francisco employer hires Idaho lawman Joe Vincent to solve the case. Soon he journeys up the wild Snake River with Lee Loi, an ambitious young company investigator, and Grace Sundown, a metis mountain guide with too many secrets.

As Japanese forces attack the Philippines in the aftermath of Pearl Harbor, US army nurse Louise Harrison waits to be evacuated from Manila. But with the enemy closing in, Louise is forced to flee with a handful of wounded soldiers to a field hospital deep in the mountains. Isolated in an unfamiliar country amid desperate conditions, Louise strikes up a friendship with Sammy Mori, an injured Japanese soldier with a secret.

Hyun Mi travels with her family to witness a miracle of nature—a land pass between islands!

Hyderabad, India. 1798. Beatrice Sinclair, a grieving young widow facing financial destitution, has travelled from Hampshire to Hyderabad to visit her brother, an employee of the British East India Company. There, she is astonished to discover that he has married a beautiful Indian girl and lives with his wife's extended family in a dilapidated palace, the Jahanara Mahal - famed for the theft of a fabled diamond many years ago. As an outsider in an unfamiliar world, Bee faces many challenges - not least of all building a new and meaningful life after the heartbreak she has endured.

Author Ha Jin’s celebrated works have claimed several top literary awards, including three Pushcart Prizes. In Nanjing Requiem, the Japanese are poised to invade Nanjing. The dean of Jinling Women’s College, Minnie Vautrin mistakenly believes her American citizenship will protect the school. But Vautrin’s life becomes a daily struggle as the school becomes a refugee camp - and the slaughter of refugees begins.

As a child, isolated from the world in a secretive military encampment with her distant mother, she turns for affection to a sympathetic soldier and to the only other girl in the camp, forming two friendships that will shape the rest of her life. As a young adult in New York, cut off from her native country and haunted by the scars of her youth, she is still in search of a home. She falls in love with a married woman who is the image of her childhood friend, and she follows strangers because they remind her of her soldier.

On a far ridge of a Himalayan hill station, a crumbling ruin holds devastating secrets. Spanning 70 years of India’s turbulent history, A House Called Askival, follows three generations of an American family from Partition to the present day. An estranged daughter returns for her father’s death, but can the past be healed? A legendary cookbook holds a fateful recipe, but what dark story does it hide? A winged creature arrives, but does it know the 100th name of God?

The English Governess at the Siamese Court, written in 1870, vividly recounts the experiences of one Anna Harriette Leonowens as governess for the sixty-plus children of King Mongkut of Siam, and translator and scribe for the King himself. Bright, young, and energetic, Leonowens was well-suited to her role and her writings convey a heartfelt interest in the lives, legends, and languages of Siam's rich and poor.

Told in interwoven narratives that glide seamlessly between the gritty streets of New York, the lush and dangerous landscape of Hawaii, and the horrors of the Japanese internment camps and the bombing of Hiroshima, Shadow Child is set against an epic sweep of history. Volcanos, tsunamis, abandonment, racism, and war form the urgent, unforgettable backdrop of this intimate, evocative, and deeply moving story of motherhood, sisterhood, and second chances.

Amah and the Silk-Winged Pigeons draws on the lost histories of the women descended from African slaves who resisted English rule during the 1857 uprising in Lucknow, India. The book is about the event that triggered Queen Victoria’s reign in India for almost a century, and illuminates new and important female, Muslim perspectives on what has been called the first war of Indian independence. Lucknow in 1856 is the most opulent city in India. If the English take it over, the royal family and centuries of rich, cosmopolitan culture will disappear.

Wonder, mysticism, heartache, and joy are the stones that set the path to one girl's journey as her destiny unfolds. In the village of Huanan in medieval China, the deity that rules is the Great Huli Jing. Though 12-year-old Li Jing's name is a different character entirely from the Huli Jing, the sound is close enough to provide constant teasing - but maybe is also a source of greater destiny and power. Jing's life isn't easy....

The farmers of Paradise County have been leading a hardscrabble life unchanged for generations. The Communist government has encouraged them to plant garlic, but selling the crop is not as simple as they believed. Warehouses fill up, taxes skyrocket, and government officials maltreat even those who have traveled for days to sell their harvest. A surplus on the garlic market ensues, and the farmers must watch in horror as their crops wither and rot in the fields. Families are destroyed by the random imprisonment of young and old for supposed crimes against the state. Meanwhile, a blind minstrel incites the masses to take the law into their own hands....