Customer Reviews

White Gardenia

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

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.

.. a male visitor will come, and if a bird flies into the room, the death of someone close to you is at hand.'

The novel opens in Harbin on the Chinese-Russian border in 1945, where Anya Kozlova is part of the large expatriate White Russian community. Anya is thirteen, her father has just died and when Harbin is occupied by the Soviets, her mother Alina Kozlova, is to be forcibly returned to Soviet Russia. Arrangements are made to try to keep Anya safe in China, and thus begin the sacrifices that both mother and daughter make to try to survive.

Anya builds a new life in Shanghai with the help of a Russian family who own a glamorous nightclub in Shanghai. She marries at seventeen, but her happiness does not last long. The Chinese civil war intrudes, and Anya flees Shanghai as a refugee who has also been abandoned by her husband. Eventually, after a period in a refugee camp in the Philippines, Anya is resettled in Australia.
Once in Australia, Anya works to establish herself while still continuing her search for news of her mother. Her life is enhanced by friends, by opportunity and eventually by love. But her life is not complete without news of her mother and it's fitting (if inevitable) that this story will have a happy ending.

I enjoyed the colour and the drama in this novel as it shifts between countries and cultures. Displacement and loss is also a large part of this story, and while Anya and many of the other characters struggle as a consequence, most are ultimately able to find joy in the new lives they forge for themselves.

This was Ms Alexander's first novel, and was published in 2003.

Jennifer Cameron-Smith

I loved this book. It is a very good read and the author is to be commended. I have been looking into buying other books by this author.

Belinda Alexandra's debut novel was a real pleasure to read and I quickly added her to my list of authors that I keep an eye on for when they release new books!

I had originally purchased this book as a gift for my mum with the blurb describing it as a powerful story about the enduring bond between a mother and daughter. I am so glad that I picked it up myself and read it! The main character, Anya is separated from her mother during the war, and it tells of her life in Russia, Shanghai and eventually Australia. This book brought a tear to my eye and made me appreciate my own mother just that little bit more!

I would highly recommend "White Gardenia" to fans of Paullina Simon's "The Bronze Horseman" (Paullina is another of my favourite authors). There is a similar feel to this book and the style of writing is very similar.