Our reviews of the latest books from home and abroad.
Not an easy feat, but one for which the protagonist of Sally Vickers' latest novel, Dancing Backwards (Harper Collins, $29.99, pbk) discovers an unexpected aptitude.
Newly widowed and preparing to embark on a six-day transatlantic cruise, Violet Hetherington is taking a major risk; at its destination she hopes to mend a decades-long estrangement from an old friend and mentor.
Despite her apprehensions and natural reserve, however, she begins to relax as she settles into the voyage.
Accustomed to pleasing others, she accepts her attentive stewards' suggestion that she try ballroom dancing, and is pleasantly surprised to find herself a natural.
Buoyed by this accomplishment, Violet begins to dance metaphorically as well as physically backwards, into memory.
History is juxtaposed against on-board events, none of which are in themselves of great significance but all of which establish her as a person others come to respect and depend upon - in sharp contrast to her own self-perception.
The adjective "bittersweet" is a cliche, but it perfectly describes the tone of this novel.
Violet regrets the mistakes and lost opportunities of the past, but is determined to follow her own desires after years of satisfying the expectations of others.
The combination is satisfyingly optimistic, without the saccharin after taste that so often accompanies such "uplifting" fiction.
The secondary characters, too, are unexpectedly eclectic and interesting.
As well as revealing Violet's strength, they offer insights into the diverse ways people discover and maintain relationships, even between the most unlikely of partners.
Light without being lightweight, Dancing Backwards is a graceful novel in high heels. - Cushla McKinney
Hal is a serving officer in the regular army; his wife, Clara, a dutiful military wife getting used to the constant shifts of the household to different countries, different cultures.
In Cyprus, Hal and Clara and their two daughters come in direct contact with terror: Hal uses brutal force to destroy one cell and his moral certainty is subsequently demolished; Clara is shot by a terrorist and their unborn child is killed.
As their world collapses around them, both escape back to Britain.
Are they able to restore their love and rebuild their marriage? You'll have to read Small Wars to find out, and you should enjoy this well-written, absorbing romance-with-a-difference. - Bryan James
Daughters of a middle-class family in Shanghai, they eschew their parents' traditional Chinese values as outdated and irrelevant, priding themselves on their Western clothes, flawless English and their jobs as "beautiful girls" (their portraits selling everything from cigarettes to cod-liver oil).
When their father suddenly arranges their marriage to Chinese-American brothers, they refuse to follow their husbands to America, only to find that they had been sold to settle gambling debts.
Not only has their defiance placed them all in great danger, the Japanese invasion of Shanghai has begun, and when their father disappears, they and their mother flee the city.
Eventually Pearl and May manage to find passage to Los Angeles, and after months in detention are permitted to join their husbands.
Life is often hard, demeaning and lonely, but they have each other, and the precious, United States-born Joy.
Then, as anti-Communist feeling intensifies in the 1950s, US citizenship is promised to all those who expose "paper" (illegal) immigrants.
No mainland-born is safe, and in this atmosphere of fear and paranoia, secrets are revealed that test the limits of sisterly love (yes it is that melodramatic).
Shanghai Girls gives an insight into American and Chinese history at a particularly troubled time, and explores the difficulties of maintaining cultural identity in a foreign land.
While not a "must read", it is fast-paced, engaging and well told - worth borrowing from the library, if not buying outright. - Cushla McKinney
