The Song of the Jade Lily - Book Review

Thanks to William Morrow and Harper Collins Publishers for a 

complimentary copy of The Song of the Jade Lily.

Alexander goes home to Australia to say goodbye to her dying grandfather before beginning her new work assignment in Shanghai. Her grandparents, Romy and Wilhelm raised her after her parents died in an accident and she loves them dearly but she's always felt a part of herself missing. Her mother was adopted from China and she hopes to fill in the blanks and find her birth family while in Shanghai.

Romy and her parents arrived in Shanghai in 1939, fleeing their homeland after the infamous Kristallnacht. Romy meets the beautiful Li with the incredible singing voice and the two become close friends. But the war comes to Shanghai and soon their lives are threatened and their friendship is torn apart.

A copy of The Song of the Jade Lily by Kristy Manning has been sitting on my shelf for a few months but I didn't get to it before it's release date and it got bumped by other novels. So when I saw the audio come available on my library app, I decided to listen instead. I was pretty quickly immersed in the world of Romy and Li. World War II stories are almost always intriguing and the setting of Shanghai gives it a unique and new feeling--setting it apart from many other World War II stories.

Shanghai was fascinating and the characters were so vulnerable and yet resilient. Romy, especially, captured my heart and she tried to exist in the new reality of life in a new country and the war that found her. Manning has written a thoroughly enjoyable novel filled with love, danger and secrets.

The novel is long but it moves at a steady pace and it was very good as an audio book. The narrator, Saskia Maarleveld, did a good job bringing the story to life.

The Song of the Jade Lily by Kristy Manning was published by William Morrow and released on May 14, 2019.