My Rating: 4.0
Haiwen is buying bananas at a 99 Ranch Market in Los Angeles when he looks up and sees Suchi, his Suchi, for the first time in sixty years. To recently widowed Haiwen it feels like a second chance, but Suchi has only survived by refusing to look back.
Suchi was seven when she first met Haiwen in their Shanghai neighborhood, drawn by the sound of his violin. Their childhood friendship blossomed into soul-deep love, but when Haiwen secretly enlisted in the Nationalist army in 1947 to save his brother from the draft, she was left with just his violin and a note: Forgive me.
Homeseeking follows the separated lovers through six decades of tumultuous Chinese history as war, famine, and opportunity take them separately to the song halls of Hong Kong, the military encampments of Taiwan, the bustling streets of New York, and sunny California, telling Haiwen’s story from the present to the past while tracing Suchi’s from her childhood to the present, meeting in the crucible of their lives. Throughout, Haiwen holds his memories close while Suchi forces herself to look only forward, neither losing sight of the home they hold in their hearts. At once epic and intimate, Homeseeking is a story of family, sacrifice, and loyalty, and of the power of love to endure beyond distance, beyond time.
This book had promise and i liked the premise of starting from current day and going back from Haiwen's (Howard's) perspecitve and then working forward from Suchi's (Sue's) perspective, I really enjoyed the first portion of this book, especially the perspective of Howard. As the book progressed, I found that I cared less and less about the characters (particularly Suchi) and what happened to them.
The novel Matterhorn takes place during the Vietnam War, specifically on several large hills that the US Marines fought to take control of, one was Helicopter Hill, and another is Matterhorn. We follow Second Lieutenant Mellas, who is commander of First Platoon Bravo One. I have just started this novel and can already tell it is going to be great. It deals with the US Marines and captures the heart detail and emotion of 
the Marines serving in the novel. It shows a side of combat that I haven't seen portrayed before. From the opening scene of a soldier having a leech up his urethra, this has been riveting and I can't wait to get back to it. Do not read this if you are bothered by cursing as this is US Marines in wartime. Maybe because this is to gritty and about war, I think that men may enjoy it more than women. The writing and story will keep you on the edge of your seat till the very end. A huge thank you from the bottom of my heart to all those who have served our country to enable us to be free. What an amazing sacrifice. Thank you.
Susan Gifford, a women's magazine writer who arrives in Vietnam to write human interest stories about the war. Instead, she ends up covering combat and finds an intense friendship with Son, a Vietnamese photographer, and an equally intense love affair with Marc, a married American journalist. During an ambush, Susan and Son are captured by the Vietcong and are marched into the jungle. When they are reported missing, Marc drops a potentially big story to find them. Meanwhile, Susan begins to suspect that Son may not be who he seems. Leimbach masterfully conjures the hothouse atmosphere of foreign correspondents in Saigon in the late 1960s, and in Susan she has created a heroine who is a worthy counterpart to the real life reporters who covered the war. Whether describing a convoy taking fire, a farcical press briefing, a quiet moment between Susan and Marc, or the ironic aftermath of Susan's ordeal, Leimbach expertly captures the contradictions of the war, making this a solid addition to the literature of an endlessly reconsidered conflict.
The story begins pre-WWII and follows the life of 9 year old Isamu (Sam). Sam leaves his mother and siblings in Japan to join his father in Hawaii. From a proud Samurai family, Sam's father has become an alcoholic, blue collar laborer working in the cane fields of Hawaii. His dream for Isamu (like all parents) is that the boy transcend the his fathers station by being educated in English and ultimately to study at an American College. This story is deeply spiritual and the writing is superb. Hamamura understands the concept of "less is more" when it comes to writing. He writes with creatively colorful descriptions, with an eloquent style, and weaves a beautiful message within the rich story set in an historically challenging time for Japanese Americans. His descriptions of the personal and spiritual development of Isamu ("Sam"), the main character struck a deep chord and resonated with me The explanations of "mu" and "ki" in Japanese cultural and spiritual experience were especially beautiful. At times, the writing seems "cutesy" but, overall, this book was beautiful and stirring. I especially loved how the Sensei got Sam to see colors everywhere he looked.
Claire Pendleton, newly married and arrived in Hong Kong in 1952, finds work giving piano lessons to the daughter of Melody and Victor Chen, a wealthy Chinese couple. While the girl is less than interested in music, the Chens' flinty British expat driver, Will Truesdale, is certainly interested in Claire, and vice versa. Their fast-blossoming affair is juxtaposed against a plot line beginning in 1941 when Will gets swept up by the beautiful and tempestuous Trudy Liang, and then follows through his life during the Japanese occupation. As Claire and Will's affair becomes common knowledge, so do the specifics of Will's murky past, Trudy's motivations and Victor's role in past events. The rippling of past actions through to the present lends the narrative layers of intrigue and more than a few unexpected twists. Lee covers a little-known time in Chinese history without melodrama, and deconstructs without judgment the choices people make in order to live one more day under torturous circumstances.
Canadian novelist Echlin (Elephant Winter) derives a powerful, transcendent love story from the Cambodian genocide. Anne Greves, a motherless 16-year-old student, meets a Cambodian refugee, Serey, working as a math instructor amid the heady music scene of late-1970s Montreal, and they fall irredeemably in love. Serey's family got him out of Pol Pot's Cambodia, although he is waiting to be able to return and find them; Anne's father, a successful engineer of prosthetics, does not approve of Anne's exotic, older boyfriend, and when, as her father predicted, Serey leaves her, disappearing for 11 years, Anne journeys to Phnom Penh to find him. There she comes face to face with the terrible fallout of the collapsed Khmer Rouge dictatorship. The beautifully spare narrative is daringly imaginative in the details, drawing the reader deep inside the wounded capital city. Anne's single-mindedness drives the action, although her insistence on Western values of accountability knocks hollowly against the machinery of a ruthless military state.