Book Review: One Hundred Merry Memories (An Aspen Cove Romance # 24) by Kelly Collins October 25, 2023 It’s sad, it’s emotional, it’s uplifting and my word.....when I got to the end I laid my kindle down and couldn’t help appreciating the superb writing. The insight to The culture and beliefs.

It is evident that the author has researched this period of time and I was intrigued by a culture that I know very little about. The stigma attached to having relationships with the American soldiers meant that unfortunate women/young girls would find themselves ostracised from their family and ensnared in a very sobering maternity hospital. This is the situation that 1950s Naoko finds herself in. In contrast, present day Tori, discovers that there is more to her father’s past than she realised. Taking her on a journey to Japan, Tori and Naoko’s histories become irrevocably entwined.

Browse reviews by Period

Chase two hares and you will catch neither,” says Grandmother. This is but a single parable in her arsenal of many. She releases them like arrows, but instead of one, which breaks with ease, she slings ten to a bundle. Timpul e o creatura incapatanata careia ii place sa te intarate. Cand esti fericit isi deschide aripile si zboara. Cand astepti. se taraste prin noroi gros, cu picioarele greoaie." Each step I took brought me closer to my future and farther away from my family. It was a contrast of extremes in every sense, but I had somehow found my place between them. That was what Buddha called the middle way. The correct balance of life. I called it happy. A life with love is happy. A life for love is foolish. A life of if only is unbearable. In my seventy-eight years, I have had all three.

Set in present day and 1950s Japan, we follow two women’s paths in life. Not really knowing much about post-war Japan, the writer successfully portrays a rigid culture that was immediately immersive and completely compelling.

At the end is a section written by the author on the inspiration behind the novel. It’s horrifying to learn that the place Naoko ends up at is based on a real place, and that the events that occur are also based on truth. It’s one thing to read a work of fiction that details these things, but to learn they actually happened? The Woman in the White Kimono is predominantly set in Japan during the late 1950s, as well as present day, and is told from two different perspectives; Tori, a young journalist who journeys to Japan after her father's death to unravel the secrets of his past and to find the family he may have left behind, and Naoko, a young Japanese girl whose forbidden love for an American soldier will change her life forever. La mujer del kimono blanco” es el debut literario de Ana Johns, y vaya que lo ha hecho por todo lo alto. A pesar de ser una novela de ficción, está basada en ciertos hechos históricos reales y en la historia de su propio padre. Reading is fabulous, and one of the things I love about it is that I can read books set in new places, new cultures, and feel like I’ve learned a little about them. The Woman in the White Kimono is just like that. Japanese culture and traditions are a huge part of the book, right from the beginning, and it’s really interesting to read about. Moreover, it lends a greater understanding to the choices that Naoko made and, eventually, Jimmy Kovac too.