Journey To Paradise by Paula Greenlees

 

Journey to Paradise by Paula Greenlees.

Published 30th December 2021 by Century Publishing. 

From the cover of the book:

Singapore, 1949. 

When Miranda steps onto the pier with her husband Gerry she hopes that their move will bring the fresh start she needs and a chance to heal the scars from her past.

Gerry's role at the British foreign office affords them a beautiful house and invites the best parties in town. But their life feels worlds apart from England and true friends are hard to find.

When doctor Nick Wythenshaw encourages Miranda to work within the local community, she finds new purpose that opens her eyes to a new way of life.

But as riots erupt across the region and danger draws close to home, Miranda must make an impossible choice. Will she sacrifice everything she holds dear to find happiness?

****************

1949: Miranda is about to take a step into the unknown. Her husband Gerry has been assigned to undertake the role of Colonial Officer in Her Majesty's Foreign Office in the exotic environs of Singapore, and as a dutiful wife, Miranda must accompany and support him in his career move. 

Although sad to leave her home, parents and friends behind, Miranda is rather excited about the prospect of a new start on the other side of the world, hoping it will help her to recover from the tragic death of their young son - and bring her and Gerry back together again. However, the cultural melting pot of post-war Singapore is hard to navigate: Miranda struggles to adjust to suddenly having staff to look after her, and walking the fine line of expected etiquette among the ex-pat community is like stumbling through a minefield - especially among the wives of Gerry's colleagues.

Miranda is bored and lonely, finding the role of domestic goddess and hostess unfulfilling, especially since Gerry is working long hours and the hoped for reconciliation between them seems further away than ever. She seems to have little in common with the women she hoped would become her friends and misunderstandings between them soon have her wishing she had never come to Singapore. But then she finds new purpose through volunteering at the local clinic and becomes friends with the young doctor who works there, Nick Wythenshaw, despite Gerry's disapproval. 

As a closeness between her and Nick develops, blossoming into something more, Miranda also begins to understand something of the difficult political situation and the plight of the native peoples in Singapore, and realises that her sympathies lie in a different quarter to those of her husband. When rioting and civil disorder break out, the danger that comes close to Miranda forces her to confront her unhappiness. It's time to make some difficult decisions...

Journey to Paradise is an immersive story that drops you right into the midst of post-war Singapore, just as the sun is starting to set on the British Empire. 

At its heart, this is a love story, but in the telling Greenlees weaves in some fascinating social, political and military history about the lie of the land in 1949, and this brings real depth to the tale. As soon as Miranda sets foot in Singapore, you experience the new sights, sounds and smells that overwhelm her creating an intensely evocative feeling of time and place. This contrasts beautifully with the grey scene Miranda and Gerry leave behind at the quay-side in Southampton, emphasising that this is going to be a whole new life for them both. But of course, some things stay the same no matter where you are, and before long it becomes clear that there is trouble, quite literally, in paradise...

One of my favourite things about this story is the way Greenlees shines a light on the lives of the women of the ex-pat community in Singapore in 1949. Despite moving half-way across the World, Miranda is still very much tied to the expected role of wife and mother, here to support the endeavours of her husband and sacrifice her own desires in the process. If things go wrong, she is the one left without any sort of support, or easy way to escape her marriage. 

Almost from the start Miranda chafes against the tight strictures placed on her as the wife of a member of the colonial administration, becoming the face of how times are changing. Through her we get to see the truth about the life of women in the late 1940s, and the double standards that lie behind the rarefied existence of the Raffles set - and the rot that has set in. She is not afraid to get to know the real Singapore, and so we also learn about the social and political troubles for the local population, and most intriguingly, the resentment they feel about being abandoned by the British and left to suffer under Japanese occupation - foreshadowing the eventual end of British rule. 

This book absolutely engrossed me from start to finish, tying me up in an exotic location and indulging my partiality for an engaging story and stirring history. This is an impressive debut, and I look forward to more from the pen of Paula Greenlees.

Journey to Paradise is available to buy now in paperback and ebook.

Thank you to Penguin for sending me a paperback copy of this book in return for an honest review.

About the author:

Paula Greenlees has an undergraduate degree in English and European Thought and Literature, and a Masters Degree in Creative Writing. She spent three years living in Singapore surrounded by the history and culture that provided the inspiration for her first novel, Journey To Paradise.