The Oriental Wife, by Evelyn Toynton

Louisa and Rolfe grew up childhood friends in Germany.  When the winds of war began to once again blow, Louisa's parents encouraged her to travel abroad.  Through a series of events and relationships, she ended up in America, where she was reunited with her childhood friends.  They married, and life seemed blissful, until an unfortunate mistake during  surgery forever changed Louisa's life.

I have to say, I am a bit disappointed in this book.  While the description of the book never told anything untrue, it certainly did not paint a completely accurate picture of the book.  I am an avid fan of World War II fiction, so setting coupled with the description really appealed to me.

I thought the development of the characters was good in the first half of the book.  I loved learning Louisa's story, and hearing about her travels.  But the second half of the book just seemed lacking.  We make a huge jump from Emma (Louisa's daughter)'s childhood to her adulthood without getting a real sense of Emma as a character.  And the arc about her sleeping with her Asian boss was just, well, unnecessary, I found.  I am sure it was meant to show something about Emma's character, but to me, it was just distracting.

Overall, I found the book to be a bit on the boring side.  I was not able to really engage with the characters enough to have much of a vested interest in the book.




I received this book as part of the Amazon Vine review program.