20190517_140309.jpgWelcome to my stop on the The Song of the Jade Lily blog tour sponsored by TLC Book Tours! Thanks to TLC for the invitation!

My Thoughts:

The Song of the Jade Lily is beautifully told in two timelines. The first is 1939 Shanghai. Two young girls, Li and Romy, become friends. 

Li is from Shanghai, and Romy is a refugee from Vienna. 

The two become fast friends. World War II seems far away at first, but it descends upon Shanghai and these girls and tears apart their friendship. 

The second timeline is 2016 when a young Alexandra returns to Australia because her grandfather Wilhelm is dying. As Wilhelm spends his last days, he and his wife, Romy, share family secrets they’ve kept hidden for decades. 

Alexandra travels to Shanghai to find answers about her grandparents. What she finds has her doubting everything she thought was true. 

The Song of the Jade Lily is an engrossing and beautifully-written story. It’s about friendship, strength, and resilience in even the most horrific of times. This is a book whose characters climbed inside my heart, and I’m not sure they’ll ever leave. The mystery is intriguing, and I loved the Chinese culture infused in the story. It was a delectable reading experience, and I hope you get a chance to read it, too! 

I received a complimentary copy. All opinions are my own. 

About The Song of the Jade Lily

• Hardcover: 480 pages
• Publisher: William Morrow (May 14, 2019)

“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

Purchase Links

HarperCollins | Amazon | Barnes & Noble

About Kirsty Manning

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.

Find out more about Kirsty at her website, and connect with her on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook.

Have you read The Song of the Jade Lily, or is it on your TBR? Happy Reading! ~ Jennifer THR