Hardcover: 352 Pages

Publisher: Park Row; Original edition (May 28, 2019)

Oceans and decades apart, two women are inextricably bound by the secrets between them.

Japan, 1957. Seventeen-year-old Naoko Nakamura’s prearranged marriage to the son of her father’s business associate would secure her family’s status in their traditional Japanese community, but Naoko has fallen for another man—an American sailor, a gaijin—and to marry him would bring great shame upon her entire family. When it’s learned Naoko carries the sailor’s child, she’s cast out in disgrace and forced to make unimaginable choices with consequences that will ripple across generations.

America, present day. Tori Kovac, caring for her dying father, finds a letter containing a shocking revelation—one that calls into question everything she understood about him, her family and herself. Setting out to learn the truth behind the letter, Tori’s journey leads her halfway around the world to a remote seaside village in Japan, where she must confront the demons of the past to pave a way for redemption.

In breathtaking prose and inspired by true stories from a devastating and little-known era in Japanese and American history, The Woman in the White Kimono illuminates a searing portrait of one woman torn between her culture and her heart, and another woman on a journey to discover the true meaning of home.

 

My Rating:

Favorite Quotes:

 

Each step I took brought me closer to my future and farther away from my family. It was a contrast of extremes in every sense, but I had somehow found my place between them. That was what Buddha called the middle way. The correct balance of life. I called it happy. A life with love is happy. A life for love is foolish. A life of if only is unbearable. In my seventy-eight years, I have had all three.

 

“Chase two hares and you will catch neither,” says Grandmother. This is but a single parable in her arsenal of many. She releases them like arrows, but instead of one, which breaks with ease, she slings ten to a bundle.

 

I should hurry, but I’m already late, and as Grandmother says, “If you are going to eat poison, you may as well clean your plate.” I kick the gravel, causing angry puffs of loose dirt to rise in protest.

 

When I first met Hajime in Yokosuka, his eyes charmed me. They captured light and sparkled like water absorbing the sun.

 

To pick the correct one is fate. To pick the wrong one is also fate. So, you must choose your love, and be prepared to love your choice.

 

Time is a stubborn creature that delights in goading you. When happy, it sprouts wings and flies. When waiting, it drags through thick mud with heavy feet.

 

My Review:

 

Ana Johns is a bewitching storyteller. Her expertly crafted tale mesmerized and gutted me while essentially holding me transfixed to my Kindle from start to finish. How is this astounding work her first novel?!?   I rarely cry but this poignantly written book moved me to tears several times and, okay, I will even confess to ugly cry sobbing. Any author who can perform such a rare fete deserves a ten-star rating.

 

The storylines were a well-researched blend of fact and fiction while cunningly related within brilliant and highly emotive narratives.   I instantly fell right into Ms. John’s cleverly woven story as if sucked into a vortex that zipped me back and forth from post-war 1950s Japan and present-day USA – and thankfully did so with without jetlag, confusion, or motion sickness. The characters were compellingly drawn, admirable, and strong – yet struggling with limited choices and truly miserable options. I was intrigued, horrified, staggered, captivated, completely invested, heartbroken, enthralled, and totally engaged by this powerful and transportive story. It is safe to say that Ana Johns has a newly minted fangirl.