The Forgotten Promise by Paula Greenlees

 

The Forgotten Promise by Paula Greenlees.

Published 1st September 2022 by Penguin.

From the cover of the book:

Malaya, 1920: Two girls make a promise in the shadows of the jungle. A promise that life won't let them easily keep.

Malaya, 1941: Ella is running her late father's tin mine in the Kledang hills, while Noor works as her cook. When the war that felt so far away suddenly arrives on their doorstep, Ella is torn apart from her family. Her daughter Grace is left in Noor's care as Japanese soldiers seize the mine.

Ella is forced to make an impossible choice that takes her to England, thousands of miles from home. She is desperate to be reunited with her loved ones. But will the life she returns to be anything like the life she left behind?

***********

Malaya, 1920. Ella and her childhood friend Noor make a promise that they will always by like sisters, but with one the daughter of the household, and the other the child of the family's cook, this will be a difficult vow to keep.

Malaya, 1941. Ella is now a wife and mother, in possession her late father's tin mine with her English husband, Johnnie. Noor has taken her mother's place as the family's cook, and the closeness that once made them inseparable has long since been driven away by the gulf in their social standing.

War is coming to Malaya, but when the Japanese finally invade, everyone is taken by surprise. Ella is separated from Johnnie and her daughter Grace, and forced to flee to England with her baby son. The fate of her husband and daughter is a mystery to her, and she does not know that Grace has been left in the care of Noor, who must do all she can to hide the child's identity from the Japanese invaders when they seize the mine.

Will Ella ever be reunited with her husband and daughter? And what will she find if she is able to return to the land of her birth? 

I really enjoyed Paula Greenlee's debut novel, Journey to Paradise, which was set in post-war Singapore, so I was really looking forward to picking up her follow-up The Forgotten Promise, and being immersed in wartime Malaya.

Greenlees establishes the relationship between Ella and Noor with a poignant episode, which foretells of the harsh realties that will divide these childhood friends, so it is no surprise when the story moves forward to 1941, that we find their association rather different than in former days. Ella and her husband are now successfully running the mine, and Noor is very much confined to the kitchen, as domestic staff. Ella has almost entirely forgotten their promise to be like sisters, and although realistic about the situation, Noor feels sad about the distance between them.

The early part of the story sets the scene of a colony on the brink of war, and paints an authentic picture of the social structure that has forged the gulf between Ella and Noor, despite Ella's mixed heritage. As in Journey to Paradise, Greenlees excels here with rich descriptive writing that beautifully evokes a feeling of time and place - but of course, this is not going to last. Even though the invasion of the Japanese has been anticipated, this is a country completely taken by surprise when it comes, and it brings about the tragic break-up of Ella's family. Ella flees to England with her son, and Greenlees writes with feeling about the experience of a woman torn in two, and completely out of her depth in an unfamiliar country down-trodden by war. Meanwhile, Noor must find a way to survive under Japanese occupation, whilst loyally protecting Ella's daughter from harm. 

The story tends to give more attention to Ella, with Noor's struggle in Malaya taking a smaller share, which I do think is a shame. I found myself wanting much more of Noor and less of Ella to make it more balanced, especially as Noor is by far the most engaging character in the book, and Ella's attitudes make her rather difficult to warm to. There was a missed opportunity to explore the lesser told story of life under Japanese occupation with real depth through Noor's eyes, as a result.

However, there are so many things in this story that Greenlees does spectacularly well, and these show how much her writing has developed since her debut novel. This is a weighty book that comes in at just over 500 pages, and it carries you on a sweeping tide from the Japanese invasion in 1941, through to the post-war period following VJ Day. There is so much history here, and Greenlees has clearly done her research well. The details about the chaotic period immediately following the defeat of Japan is particularly fascinating.

The most striking thing about this book though is the way Greenlees makes this almost entirely the province of the women, against the backdrop of wider world events. It is the emotional side of their story that keeps you turning the pages, and you feel the impact of their heartache, loneliness, and divided loyalties with force. Fear of spoilers prevents me from waxing lyrical here, but I was very impressed with the way in which Greenlees does this so well through the stories of both Ella and Noor, and through Ella's friend Melody, touching on a bevy of themes around women and war. I did guess the twist quite early on in the story, but liked how Greenlees uses this to allude to a factual piece of history she also references in Journey to Paradise, and to bring in a satisfying thread of reconciliation to tie up things nicely at the end.

This is a compelling read, and I really enjoy how Greenlees blends the personal lives of her characters with such engaging history. I look forward to seeing where she turns her attention next.

The Forgotten Promise is available to buy now in paperback and ebook.

Thank you to Penguin for sending me an ecopy of this book in return for an honest review, and to Random Things Tours for inviting me to be part of this blog tour.

About the author:

Paula has lived in various places, including Singapore, where she was based for three years. It was while living in Singapore that the first seeds of her debut novel, Journey to Paradise, developed. Her writing, although set against exotic backgrounds, is set on the cusp of change – the shift from colonial dominance to independence. She likes to dig into a variety of issues and her main protagonist is, in many ways, a metaphor for the political and social events surrounding her at that time. It isn’t always an easy journey, but in the end, success comes her way. The Forgotten Promise tells the story of Ella, a young Eurasian woman, whose life is turned upside down by the Japanese occupation of Malaya, and it is through her lens and that of Noor, her cook, that the narrative is revealed. 

Paula has always wanted to be a writer. As a little girl she used to spend hours writing stories and turning them into books, even using flour and water as paste to stick the pages together. She spent hours writing poetry and plays as a teenager and has always written short stories in her spare time. It is this need to write and a love of reading that led her to take a degree in English and European Thought and Literature, and later a Masters Degree in Creative Writing. 

As a writer, she feels it is important to have a wide range of interests – not only does it adds flavour and layering to prose, but allows it allows time for ideas to mull and to percolate. People watching in cafés is one, long walks is another, and travel, which has proved to be a little harder in then past couple of years.. Good food is essential to her (you will find lots of food descriptions in her writing) and she loves to cook using the best ingredients she can find. As well as a love of travel, she is a keen amateur photographer and her latest trip took her to Cambodia and she hopes to return to Southeast Asia in the near future. She is currently working on a new 3 book series.

Paula lives in Warwickshire with her husband and an extremely friendly Labrador and you can find out more about her on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook. More details HERE.