Sisters Under the Rising Sun

After the fall of Singapore in February 1942, a group of women, Australian army nurses, English and Dutch civilians, and others fleeing the Japanese advance, are captured and held as prisoners of war. Over more than three years in a series of camps in the Indonesian jungle, they endure starvation, disease, and cruelty. Australian nurse Nesta James and English musician Norah Chambers become the heart of the story, and Chambers organizes a "vocal orchestra," teaching the women to hum full orchestral works from memory to keep their spirits alive. Heather Morris built the novel from the real accounts of these survivors, following their friendships and small defiances through liberation. The book widens Morris's focus from the Holocaust to the Pacific theater while keeping her attention on ordinary people surviving the unimaginable together.