White Gardenia

by Belinda Alexandra

Book Overview

Mass-market paperback release of a novel about the sacrifices made by a mother and daughter, first published in 2002. In the city of Harbin, a haven for White Russian families since Russia's Communist... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1476790310
• ISBN13: 9781476790312
• Release Date: February 2015
• Publisher: Gallery Books
• Length: 496 Pages
• Weight: 0.90 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.4" x 5.3" x 8.3"

Customer Reviews

Not a perfect book but an enjoyable one

I was attracted to White Gardenias by some positive comments that Paullina Simons (one of my favorite authors) made about it, so I took a chance and ordered a copy. It pretty much delivers what it promises: a sweeping story spaning three continents and three decades. Interestingly, though there is romance, the crux of the saga is the relationship between the heroine Anya, and her mother Alina. Anya grew up in with her parents in Harbin: a Chinese haven for White Russian families after the Communist Revolution. When her father dies Anya and her mother do what they can to survive when the Japanese invade the country during World War II. However a personal vendetta leads to a heartbreaking choice for Anya's mother. Alina is forced to separate from Anya in order to save her. Anya finds herself lost and adrift in Shanghai, and at the mercy of the greed and vindictiveness of those she thinks she can trust. When once again she's forced to flee her home, Anya finds herself settling in Australia- a country that welcomes refugees in the aftermath of the war. Anya makes some deveoted friends and equally devoted enemies. She earns the love of two men, but never wavers in her desire to find her mother again. The book's weakness is that Alexandra doesn't develop the mother-daughter relationship sufficiently. A stronger sense of the ties between Anya and Alina would have helped the reader understand the urgency in finding one another. As it stands, we understand the love between them in a general sense: the love of a parent and a child. More development would help us understand the connection on a more individualized level: the love of THIS parent for THIS child. However the novel is an absorbing and entertaining read.