What a beautiful tribute to a horrible reality.

Gaynor’s writing is sparse in places, unsentimental, and true to the very English character of Elspeth Kent, a stalwart and no-nonsense missionary school teacher. Yet the story is not only told by Elspeth, and in the alternating chapters, the voice of the preteen girl rings with authenticity, even expressing the strange reality of Nancy’s lonely and awkward situation.

I felt a personal affinity with Elspeth as a teacher, and as a missionary who worked for the China Inland Mission, as I have done both (though not in China, and they’ve changed their name since Mao’s day when they got the final boot). I heard some of these stories first hand from the generation who lived through Chefoo’s occupation and relocation, through the aftermath of WWII in Asia, and the efforts of the CIM to continue their great work in Asia. I remember retired missionaries and grown children recounting their own horrors, and I’ve read and taught the beautiful story of Eric Liddell on numerous occasions. This novel was like being taken back to some of the people I knew, to their place in time as they told it, but with new eyes, a different perspective, another angle of a familiar story.

…a beautiful tribute highlighting the joys and light of humanity in some truly horrific times…