Bayside Library Service

"Sisters Under the Rising Sun" is the new novel from bestselling Australian author Heather Morris, and is inspired by a true story of bravery, friendship, and sisterhood that survives even the darkest circumstances. In the midst of WWII, an English musician, Norah Chambers, places her eight-year-old daughter Sally on a ship leaving Singapore, desperate to keep her safe as the island falls to the Japanese Army. Australian nurse Nesta James has enlisted to tend to Allied troops. But as Japanese troops overrun the island she joins the terrified cargo of people, including the heartbroken Norah, crammed aboard the Vyner Brooke merchant ship. 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 one of the notorious Japanese POW camps. Join interviewer Claire Halliday, in conversation with Heather Morris, whose moving novels, "The Tattooist of Auschwitz", "Cilka’s Journey" and "Three Sisters", have captured the attention of millions of readers around the world.