Janice Y. K. Lee

It2s 1952 and 32-year-old Claire arrives in Hong Kong with her new (and dull) husband Martin. Using her marriage to escape a bitter mother and non-existent home life in England, Claire takes a position in Hong Kong as piano teacher to Locket, the daughter of wealthy socialite Chinese parents. She swiftly becomes intrigued by the family2s unconventional English driver, the charismatic and enigmatic Will Truesdale... Claire2s love affair with Will is interwoven with events in the early 1940s in Hong Kong - and another, very passionate, and tragically doomed love affair, Japanese brutality and secrets betrayed.

The Piano Teacher

"A rare and exquisite story . . . Transports you out of time, out of place, into a world you can feel on your very skin." —Elizabeth Gilbert The New York Times bestseller Janice Y.K. Lee's latest novel, The Expatriates, is now available from Penguin In the sweeping tradition of The English Patient, Janice Y.K. Lee's debut novel is a tale of love and betrayal set in war-torn Hong Kong. In 1942, Englishman Will Truesdale falls headlong into a passionate relationship with Trudy Liang, a beautiful Eurasian socialite. But their affair is soon threatened by the invasion of the Japanese as World War II overwhelms their part of the world. Ten years later, Claire Pendleton comes to Hong Kong to work as a piano teacher and also begins a fateful affair. As the threads of this spellbinding novel intertwine, impossible choices emerge-between love and safety, courage and survival, the present, and above all, the past.

A Novel

Melody Izard

A young girl, lacking very much self-confidence, marries a man she really doesn't know or love and is moved from England to Hong Kong in the time soon after the war and the occupation by the Japanese. She begins teaching piano lessons to a local, wealthy Chinese couple's daughter and as her circle of acquaintances expands she meets and falls in love with an Englishman with a mysterious past. 

The dialog is lovely, the character development is very well done and the plot seems to be developing with a respectable clip, until suddenly it dawns on me that there is just a very short amount of time left and hardly any questions have been answered. And so it is neatly wrapped up in just the briefest of moments by the content of a conversation with one of the key characters who doesn't appear to be a key character until that conversation. And that was such a spoiler for me. Did the author get tired of writing? Did she not know how to explain the situation in any other way? Mysteries. But it kept this book in the "liked it" category rather than the "really liked it" column.

Megan Gardner

Jennifer A.

Trish 

Rachel

Ambitious, exotic, and a classic book club read, 'The Piano Teacher' is a combination of 'Tenko' meets 'The Remains of the Day'. Sometimes the end of a love affair is only the beginning...In 1942, Will Truesdale, an Englishman newly arrived in Hong Kong, falls headlong into a passionate relationship with Trudy Liang, a beautiful Eurasian socialite. But their love affair is soon threatened by the invasion of the Japanese, with terrible consequences for both of them, and for members of their fragile community who will betray each other in the darkest days of the war. Ten years later, Claire Pendleton lands in Hong Kong and is hired by the wealthy Chen family as their daughter's piano teacher. A provincial English newlywed, Claire is seduced by the colony's heady social life. She soon begins an affair - only to discover that her lover's enigmatic demeanour hides a devastating past. As the threads of this compelling and engrossing novel intertwine and converge, a landscape of impossible choices emerges, between love and safety, courage and survival, the present and above all, the past.

The Piano Teacher

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