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Gail Lim, a producer of radio documentaries in present-day Vancouver, finds herself haunted by events in her parents' past in war-torn Asia, a past which remains a mystery that fiercely grips her imagination.
As a child, Gail's father, Matthew Lim, wandered the Leila Road and the jungle fringe with his lovely Ani, a girl whose early bond with Matthew will affect his life always. As children, they found themselves together under the terrifying shadow of war in Japanese-occupied Sandakan, Malaysia. The war shatters their families and splits the two apart until years later, when they remeet only to be separated again. The legacy of their connection is later inherited by Matthew's wife, Clara, in unexpected ways.
Gail's journey to unravel the mystery of her parents' lives takes her to Amsterdam, where she meets the war photographer Sipke, who tells his story of Ani and their relationship, which began in Jakarta, a story that will bring Gail face to face with the complications in her own life and lead her closer to the truth.
"Her prose is poised but wan, and the patchwork story, despite jolts of tragic history, doesn't elicit much interest in her characters or their roads not taken." - Publishers Weekly.
"In her beautifully written debut novel, Thien spins a silky web of a story .... There is a light, translucent quality to Thien's prose that casts a certain dreamlike quality on the tale, and yet the magnetic plot will keep the reader's interest through the end." - Booklist.
"The elegant prose and carefully rendered plot are almost too understated to convey the operatic emotions." - Kirkus Reviews
This information about Certainty was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Certainty won the 2006 First Novel Award from Amazon.ca and Books in Canada - awarded in October 2007.
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