\n\tWe met on 8th August to discuss it, and for once our stars aligned and all ten of us were present!<\/span>\n<\/p>\n \n\tWe agreed that it was an amazing and captivating story, historical fiction maybe but we all learned a lot about French Indo-China in the early 1950s. Our average score for the book was 8 out of 10.<\/span>\n<\/p>\n \n\tThe book is set in Hanoi, Vietnam, in the early 50s and focuses on Nicole and her struggles with identity and belonging. With a French father and a (late) Vietnamese mother, Nicole has inherited her mother's looks so she is often called "métisse", something that makes her feel uncomfortable and out of place. Her older sister though has their father's looks and seems to be the preferred daughter. Nicole's self doubts only increase as the story unfolds and Vietnam becomes a very dangerous place. The French government is loosing its power as the nationalist Vietminh gain power and support. And soon, Nicole finds herself having to decide which side she is going to support.<\/span>\n<\/p>\n \n\tBetween all this turmoil, there's also space for romance. Early in the story, Nicole meets a dashing American that makes her heart flutter. But he seems to have many secrets and a special connection with her sister. So when an enthusiastic and persuasive young Vietnamese enters her life, she must decide, once more, which life she is going to choose.<\/span>\n<\/p>\n \n\tThe Silk Merchant's Daughter is a story with many layers. There's war but also love, betrayal but also forgiveness, doubts but also certainties. It captures perfectly what it means being part of two completely different cultures but not belonging to either. It's something that has made me think a lot and I'm sure this story will stay with us for a long tim<\/span>\n<\/p>\n \n\t \n<\/p>\n \n\t \n\t \n<\/p>\n \n\t \n<\/p>\n \n\t <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Silk Merchant's Daughter by Dinah Jefferies. We met on 8th August to discuss it, and for once our stars aligned and all ten of us were present! We agreed that it was an amazing and captivating story, historical fiction maybe but we all learned a lot about French Indo-China in the early 1950s. Our average score for the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[41],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6cWjO-WL","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":12869,"url":"http:\/\/wenvoe.org.uk\/?p=12869","url_meta":{"origin":3643,"position":0},"title":"Lucky Dip Books","author":"Alan Williams","date":"1st February 2023","format":false,"excerpt":"Various Books During our December meeting each member placed a book into a Lucky Dip and the individual books drawn by the Page Turners were read and summarised for our January meeting as shown below: Leonard And Hungry Paul by Ronan Hession This is the story of two ordinary single\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Wenvoe Page Turners"","block_context":{"text":"Wenvoe Page Turners","link":"http:\/\/wenvoe.org.uk\/?cat=41"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":4024,"url":"http:\/\/wenvoe.org.uk\/?p=4024","url_meta":{"origin":3643,"position":1},"title":"round the Mulberry Bush","author":"Alan Williams","date":"28th November 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"\u00a0 Thanks to a donation from a Wenvoe resident the Wildlife Group has just planted a new Mulberry in the Community Orchard. Mulberries are not new to Wenvoe - there is a fine, mature tree at the top of the village that drips with fruit in late summer. But they\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Nature Notes"","block_context":{"text":"Nature Notes","link":"http:\/\/wenvoe.org.uk\/?cat=49"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":8251,"url":"http:\/\/wenvoe.org.uk\/?p=8251","url_meta":{"origin":3643,"position":2},"title":"Passing Time In Lock Down","author":"Alan Williams","date":"4th September 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"PASSING TIME IN LOCK DOWN Although we are all trying to return to some form of normal life there are those of us whom still seem to have plenty of time to fill at home with time to read books, watch films, or listen to audio tapes etc. Over the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "General Interest Articles"","block_context":{"text":"General Interest Articles","link":"http:\/\/wenvoe.org.uk\/?cat=334"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3999,"url":"http:\/\/wenvoe.org.uk\/?p=3999","url_meta":{"origin":3643,"position":3},"title":"\u2018The Quality of Silence\u2019","author":"Alan Williams","date":"28th November 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"\u2018The Quality of Silence\u2019 by Rosamund Lupton Yasmin who is an Astrologist, and her daughter Ruby, who is deaf from birth, have flown to Fairbanks to meet up with her husband Matt, who makes documentary wildlife films. They were met by a policeman who explained that Matt had been staying\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Wenvoe Page Turners"","block_context":{"text":"Wenvoe Page Turners","link":"http:\/\/wenvoe.org.uk\/?cat=41"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":12097,"url":"http:\/\/wenvoe.org.uk\/?p=12097","url_meta":{"origin":3643,"position":4},"title":"July 2022 Book Choice","author":"Alan Williams","date":"6th August 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"\u201cThe Songbirds\" By Christy Lefteri Nisha is from Sri Lanka. She is a nanny\/domestic help in Nicosia, sending money home to support her daughter. Nisha has disappeared and her story is written through the eyes of her lover Yannis, and her employer Petra. Petra struggles being a mother to Aliki\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Wenvoe Page Turners"","block_context":{"text":"Wenvoe Page Turners","link":"http:\/\/wenvoe.org.uk\/?cat=41"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":14068,"url":"http:\/\/wenvoe.org.uk\/?p=14068","url_meta":{"origin":3643,"position":5},"title":"“The Marriage Portrait” by Maggie O\u2019Farrell","author":"Alan Williams","date":"14th March 2024","format":false,"excerpt":"\"The Marriage Portrait\" by Maggie O\u2019Farrell Regular readers may remember that we reviewed this book briefly last month; it was received by one of our group from our \u201clucky dip\u201d read in December. Our group member recommended that we should all read it as our January book. The author Maggie\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Wenvoe Page Turners"","block_context":{"text":"Wenvoe Page Turners","link":"http:\/\/wenvoe.org.uk\/?cat=41"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/wenvoe.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3643"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/wenvoe.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/wenvoe.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wenvoe.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wenvoe.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3643"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/wenvoe.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3643\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3644,"href":"http:\/\/wenvoe.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3643\/revisions\/3644"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/wenvoe.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3643"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wenvoe.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3643"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wenvoe.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3643"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/wenvoe.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/a-SEPT-page-turners.jpg?resize=500%2C257\")
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