COMP CLOSED | Book Giveaway | Sisters Under the Rising Sun

The captivating new novel from the multimillion-copy bestselling author of The Tattooist of Auschwitz, Cilka’s Journey and Three Sisters. Sisters under the Rising Sun is a story of women in war: a novel of resilience, bravery and friendship in the darkest of circumstances.

It is February 1942. Amid the turmoil of World War II, a group of Australian Army nurses, among them Nesta James and Vivian Bullwinkel, have just arrived in Singapore. The women have fled there from Malaya, where they had been caring for Allied troops – and they are reluctant to move on again. Their hope is to remain in the beleaguered British colony to continue their mission of treating the sick and wounded.

Norah Chambers, an English musician, has also fled to Singapore from Malaya, where she had been living with her husband and her eight-year-old daughter, Sally. Two months earlier, she had sent her child away on a ship bound for Australia, desperate to keep her safe from invading Japanese forces.

As the Japanese military overruns the city, Nesta and Vivian reluctantly join a terrified cargo of people – including the heartbroken Norah – crammed aboard the merchant ship Vyner Brooke. Only two days later, they are bombarded from the air off the coast of Indonesia, and in a matter of hours, the Vyner Brooke has sunk. After surviving 24 hours in the sea, Nesta and Norah reach the beaches of a remote island, only to be captured and held in a succession of Japanese POW camps, places of starvation and brutality, where disease runs rampant. But even here, joy can be found by those with the will to defy their desperate circumstances. When Norah forms a ‘vocal orchestra’, with the women’s voices taking the place of instruments, their music has the power to bring hope into the midst of despair.

Sisters in arms, Norah and Nesta fight side by side, discovering in themselves extraordinary reserves of courage, resourcefulness, humour and hope in their determination to retain their humanity by caring for others.

Drawing upon their real-life experiences, Heather Morris chronicles the powerful bonds of sisterhood among the 500 Australian, English, Dutch and New Zealand women who struggled and survived together for nearly four years. The result of Heather’s passionate commitment to ensuring that the bravery of these nurses, mothers and daughters is recognised, Sisters under the Rising Sun has all the elements loved by her millions of readers: strong women, courage against the odds and the power of friendship and community.

Notes

• This book is Heather Morris at her very best. She has met with the families of both the lead characters, Nesta and Norah, and she is driven by a passionate commitment to provide the 500 women interned in these camps with the recognition for their bravery that they deserve but did not always receive.
• The vocal orchestra created by the women, using handwritten music transcribed by memory, is a poignant but triumphant thread to the narrative.
• The Tattooist of Auschwitz is currently being filmed as a six-part mini-series TV adaptation screening next year, starring Melanie Lynskey (Yellowjackets, The Last of Us) and Harvey Keitel (The Irishman, Pulp Fiction, Reservoir Dogs, Taxi Driver). This release will serve to cement Heather’s standing throughout the world.

About the author:

Born in New Zealand, Heather Morris is an international number-one bestselling author who is passionate about stories of survival, resilience and hope. In 2003, while working in a large

public hospital in Melbourne, Heather was introduced to an elderly gentleman who ‘might just have a story worth telling’. The day she met Lale Sokolov changed both their lives. Lale’s story formed the basis for The Tattooist of Auschwitz and the follow-up novel, Cilka’s Journey. In 2021 she published the phenomenal conclusion to the Tattooist trilogy, Three Sisters, after being asked to tell the story of three Holocaust survivors who knew Lale from their time in Auschwitz-Birkenau. Together, her novels have sold more than 16 million copies worldwide. In 2020 she published Stories of Hope, her account of her journey to writing the story of Lale Sokolov’s life.

 

 

Terms and conditions

1. 1. You must be a GrownUps member and receive our newsletter to be eligible to win.
   2. Competition closes on the 31st October 2023, winners will be notified via email by 2nd November 2023.
   3. It is your responsibility to ensure you correctly enter a New Zealand postal address where the prize can be couriered. GrownUps will not take responsibility for prizes sent to incorrect addresses.
   4. Winners are drawn at random by the GrownUps administration team.
   5. GrownUps employees and family are not eligible to enter.
   6. By entering the giveaway, you approve for GrownUps to use your name on social media as winner of the competition.
   7. One entry per household.
   8. Prize is non transferrable.
   9. You must reside in New Zealand – the prize will only be posted within New Zealand.
   10. You must be over 50 years of age to enter, check your details are correct in your membership dashboard.