Beside a Burning Sea

by John Shors Narrated by Richard Poe

Overview

Best-selling author John Shors is a master storyteller. A novel of mercy, love, and renewal in a time of war, Beside a Burning Sea is hailed as "a magical read" (Publishers Weekly). During World War II, the hospital ship Benevolence is providing relief to victims in the South Pacific when she is torpedoed and sunk. Among the survivors are a troubled nurse named Annie and the wounded Japanese soldier named Akira who saves her life.

Editorial Reviews

Publishers Weekly

Shors' sophomore effort (following Beneath a Marble Sky), set on an island in the South Pacific during three weeks in 1942, features achingly lyrical prose, even in depicting the horrors of war. After a U.S. hospital ship is torpedoed and sunk by the Japanese, a handful of survivors struggle for survival on a remote island. They include the captain and an officer; a Japanese prisoner, Akira, and two ship's nurses he saved (one of them the captain's wife); and the ship's engineer, who saves a Fijian stowaway, Ratu. Akira, a college professor pressed into service, is haunted by what he saw, did, and didn't do at Nanking. Jake, the engineer, is a black farmer who sees in Ratu the son he never had. Ratu adds a colorful combination of winsome bravado, humor and childish fear; each main character is similarly well-rounded, excepting the single-minded traitor among them, unsuspected by his fellow castaways. Shors pays satisfying attention to class and race dynamics, as well as the tension between wartime enemies. The survivors' dignity, quiet strength and fellowship make this a magical read.
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The Des Moines Register

Jahanara is a beguiling heroine whom readers will come to love; none of today's chick-lit heroines can match her dignity, fortitude and cunning...Elegant, often lyrical, writing distinguishes this literary fiction from the genre known as historical romance. It is truly a work of art, rare in a debut novel.

India Post

An exceptional work of fiction...A gripping account.

Rocky Mountain News

An absorbing novel about the extremes of passion—with much relevance for our own time.

ForeWord

As luminous a jewel as any that adorn the Taj Mahal's walls.

Kirkus Reviews

Survivors of a torpedo attack struggle for survival in the midst of World War II. Shors follows up his ambitious debut (Beneath a Marble Sky, 2004) with an undemanding but problematic survival story that falls somewhere between Lost and Father Goose. The U.S. hospital ship Benevolence is on war duty in the Solomon Islands in September 1942 when it's suddenly and purposefully torpedoed by a Japanese submarine, sending more than 500 souls to a watery grave. The ship's captain, Joshua Collins, survives the event along with several others, including his wife Isabelle, Isabelle's younger sister, Annie, a Japanese POW, Akira, and a young stowaway, Ratu, who is searching for his father. They manage to make their way to a strategically located island that threatens to be overrun by the enemy at any moment. Annie instantly forms a romantic, poetry-inspired bond with Akira, who is haunted by horrific memories of the Rape of Nanking. The good captain does some sulking over the loss of his ship until Isabelle fesses up that she's pregnant, forcing Joshua to cowboy up and lead his tattered crew to safety in the midst of a raging typhoon. But the group's biggest danger comes from within their own ranks. It turns out that Benevolence was targeted because of its clandestine cargo. The ship and its crew were betrayed by turncoat spy Roger, a former missionary who carries a burning hatred for the West and conspires regularly with the Japanese. Akira remains the only sympathetic and convincing character throughout, especially in the face of Roger's cartoonish rants, Joshua's square-jawed heroism and the addle-brained sisters, who comfort themselves with thoughts like, "Maybe there aren't reasons. Maybethings . . . evil things just happen."Fast-paced and earnest, but this tale of a fateful trip promises more depth than it delivers. Agent: Laura Dail/Laura Dail Literary Agency

Product Details

BN ID:	2940171137441
Publisher:	Recorded Books, LLC
Publication date:	03/20/2009
Edition description:	Unabridged

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