The Forgotten Promise by Paula Greenlees
Malaya, 1920: Two girls make a promise in the shadows of the jungle. A promise that life won't let them easily keep.
Malaya, 1941: Ella is running her late father's tin mine in the Kledang hills, while Noor works as her cook.
When the war that felt so far away suddenly arrives on their doorstep, Ella is torn apart from her family. Her daughter Grace is left in Noor's care as Japanese soldiers seize the mine.
Ella is forced to make an impossible choice that takes her to England, thousands of miles from home. She is desperate to be reunited with her loved ones. But will the life she returns to be anything like the life she left behind?
About the author
Paula has lived in various places, including Singapore, where she was based for three years. It was while living in Singapore that the first seeds of her debut novel, Journey to Paradise, developed. The crumbling buildings and the modern high-rises popping up almost overnight seemed to be a metaphor for the social diversity and change in Singapore at that time. However, as a young mother living there, she wondered what it must have been like as a post-war colonial wife living miles away from the familiarity of home. Despite the gloss and glamour of colonial living, women were frequently stuck in unhappy marriages, often unable to follow careers or have the independence to divorce if things went wrong – which they inevitably did.
Her writing, although set against exotic backgrounds, is set on the cusp of change – the shift from colonial dominance to independence. She likes to dig into a variety of issues and her main protagonist is, in many ways, a metaphor for the political and social events surrounding her at that time. It isn’t always an easy journey, but in the end, success comes her way.
The Forgotten Promise tells the story of Ella, a young Eurasian woman, whose life is turned upside down by the Japanese occupation of Malaya, and it is through her lens and that of Noor, her cook, that the narrative is revealed.
As for Paula – she has always wanted to be a writer. As a little girl she used to spend hours writing stories and turning them into books, even using flour and water as paste to stick the pages together. She spent hours writing poetry and plays as a teenager and has always written short stories in her spare time. It is this need to write and a love of reading that led her to take a degree in English and European Thought and Literature, and later a Masters Degree in Creative Writing.
Apart from her writing, Paula hosts a regular author interview on her website. You can find out more about new and existing historical fiction authors, such as Liz Trenow, Frances Quinn and Louise Fein, by hitting the ‘author interview tab.’
As a writer, she feels it is important to have a wide range of interests – not only does it adds flavour and layering to prose, but allows it allows time for ideas to mull and to percolate. People watching in cafés is one, long walks is another. And food! Good food is essential to her and she loves to cook using the best ingredients she can find. As well as a love of travel, she is a keen amateur photographer and her next trip takes her to Cambodia where she is hoping to discover an exciting hook for a new book - you can find out more about her progress there by following her on Instagram.
Paula has a grown up daughter and lives in Warwickshire with her husband and an extremely friendly Labrador.
Follow her at:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/WritingMatter
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/paulagreenlees/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/PGreenlees
Website: https://www.paulagreenlees.com/
Review
‘The Forgotten Promise’ is a haunting look at a family torn apart from the horrors of war, how they survive and what they sacrifice for love. It's an area of history which I'm not that familiar with - the experience of people during the second world war in Malaya. I love learning about the social history of places and this was book was jammed pack with little details, a lot of drama and plenty of tension.
Ella and Noor are childhood friends but come from different worlds. Ella is the daughter of a tin mine owner in Malaya and Noor is their cook’s daughter. As children they are inseparable but as they grow older they drift apart. Come 1941 Ella is married and living at the mine with her husband and children. When war encroaches on their lives Ella is forced to make a decision that will change not only her life but also Noor’s.
I enjoyed reading Ella and Noor’s stories but I felt a stronger affinity with Noor as a character. I felt her development arc was broader and she grew more as a person. This was a sanitised version of the Japanese invasion as we all know how brutal they were to their prisoners of war etc. I found this to be an engaging and emotive read and flew through it in a couple of days. I will keep an eye out for what Paula does next!
