In her prologue, Vanessa Chan tells us that The Storm We Made is inspired by her grandparents’ generation’s reluctant stories about the period 1941 – 1945 in Malaya (now Malaysia) known as the Japanese Occupation. Unfolding through four perspectives – that of Cecily and her three children Jujube, Abel and Jasmin – this is a gripping, captivating and heartbreaking novel exploring the devastating consequences of the misguided decisions we make with great intentions, the atrocities of war, when the supposed saviour becomes a new and even worse oppressor, the rage that builds in us through a sense of injustice, and the small but powerful joys of being seen. 

There is so much sadness and violence in this but also burning desire and through it all a mother’s powerful love for her children, and a siblings’ drive to keep their family together. The four different perspectives give this novel a richly layered feel. From Cecily’s timeline pre and during occupation, the unfulfilled wife yearning for more who is presented with an opportunity to effect pivotal change, to the harried mother laden with guilt, to Jujube, bubbling with rage at the unfairness of life, Abel a broken young man, and Jasmin the youngest, viewing the atrocities of occupation through young innocent eyes without comprehension, providing us with a wide-eyed and naively emotional view of historical unfoldings.

This is beautiful storytelling with richly drawn characters. Cecily is a brilliantly flawed character who we see at her apex as an empowered and desired woman playing a key role in the potential for life altering change for her nation, and at her nadir as a woman broken by grief, incapable of washing herself or being there when her children need her. Jujube and Jasmin’s dynamic of squabbling siblings who love each other fiercely plays out in the extreme context they are living in. Abel’s storyline is devastating but lifted by small moments of humanity in the direst of situations. Each character’s inner landscape is developed with great depth. 

A historical epic with great heart, exploring concepts of inherited pain, womanhood in difficult times, how choices we make reverberate through generations, the legacy of colonisation, being drawn to toxic men, and the drive for survival, this is a haunting, deeply charged and beautifully written novel with a gut-punch ending. I loved this.

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The Storm We Made is published by Hodder & Stoughton January 4th 2024. Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for my eARC.

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Vanessa Chan is the Malaysian author of THE STORM WE MADE (coming Jan. 2024), a highly-anticipated novel about the unlikeliest of spies — a discontent mother and wife in 1930s British Malaya who, in becoming a spy for the Japanese, unwittingly ushers in the most violent war her country has ever seen. THE STORM WE MADE, acquired by international publishers in a flurry of auctions, will be published in more than twenty languages/regions worldwide including with Marysue Rucci Books, an imprint of Simon & Schuster (US) and Hodder & Stoughton, an imprint of Hachette (UK). Full bio here.