We Two Alone: Stories

by Jack Wang, Feodor Chin (Narrator), Natalie Naudus (Narrator)

A masterful collection of stories that dramatizes the Chinese diaspora across the globe over the past hundred years, We Two Alone is Jack Wang’s astonishing debut work of fiction.

Set on five continents and spanning nearly a century, We Two Alone traces the long arc and evolution of the Chinese immigrant experience. A young laundry boy risks his life to play organized hockey in Canada in the 1920s. A Canadian couple gets caught in the outbreak of violence in Shanghai during the Second Sino-Japanese War. The consul general of China attempts to save lives following Kristallnacht in Vienna. A family aspires to buy a home in South Africa, during the rise of apartheid. An actor in New York struggles to keep his career alive while yearning to reconcile with his estranged wife.

From the vulnerable and disenfranchised to the educated and elite, the characters in this extraordinary collection embody the diversity of the diaspora at key moments in history and in contemporary times. Jack Wang has crafted deeply affecting stories that not only subvert expectations but contend with mortality and delicately draw out the intimacies and failings of love.

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction, Historical Fiction, Canada, Historical, China, Adult Fiction

7 pages, Audiobook

First published September 1, 2020

About the author

WE TWO ALONE: STORIES

* Winner of the Danuta Gleed Literary Award from the Writers' Union of Canada for best debut collection in English
* Shortlisted for the Kobo Emerging Writer Prize
* CBC Books Best Canadian Fiction of 2020
* Quill and Quire 2020 Books of the Year
* 49th Shelf 2020 Fiction: Books of the Year

JACK WANG ’s fiction has been shortlisted for the Commonwealth Short Story Prize and longlisted for the Journey Prize. In 2014–15, he held the David T. K. Wong Creative Writing Fellowship at the University of East Anglia in Norwich, England, and in 2020, he was awarded a residency at Historic Joy Kogawa House in Vancouver. He holds a BSc from the University of Toronto, an MFA from the University of Arizona, and a PhD from Florida State University, and he is an associate professor in the Department of Writing at Ithaca College. Originally from Vancouver, he lives in Ithaca, New York, with his wife, novelist Angelina Mirabella, and their two daughters.

Reviews

[Era ➴ · Rating 3 out of 5]

Thank you to Netgalley for providing me an ARC!

So I kind of forgot what this one was about when I downloaded it, since I’m smart like that. I didn’t remember the synopsis at all, so I went in blind.

Turns out that “We Two Alone” is a book composed of short stories about the mistreatment of Chinese people throughout Western history, ending with a story of the same name.

The Valkyries - this story was amazing at addressing the struggles of Asian people in the West. The main character, Nelson, is a young Chinese man living in 1920s Vancouver. He wants to play hockey as a career and has always loved it, but due to his race, he can’t even be considered for tryouts.

So what does he do? He joins the newly-pitched women’s team by wearing women’s clothes and putting on some makeup (think reverse Mulan with hockey).

This story did an amazing job of addressing Asian discrimination and sexism, I’m not going to deny this. I loved how gritty and raw the narrative was in exposing the discrimination. But I have to point out how problematic Nelson and Tessa were.

Tessa was a closeted lesbian. Nelson was a guy. But Tessa kissed Nelson (or “Nellie,” as he introduced himself to the Valkyries) while thinking he was also a lesbian girl. I understand that this was to address the treatment of LGBTQ+ people back then, but this just came across as problematic for me.

This story was realistic and addressed discrimination very well, so I shouldn’t be complaining, but I just couldn’t enjoy the plot from then on.

The Nature of Things - Frank and Alice are a Chinese couple who have struggled against racism and exclusion in America and Canada. They’ve sustained their relationship through years of long-distance while Frank practiced to become a doctor.

They hope things will become better when they move to Shanghai, but World War Two rolls around, along with the Japanese invasion of China.

A pregnant Alice has to leave Frank in Shanghai, as he insists on staying to continue helping at the hospital. As she and Frank’s parents flee to different homes, she waits for him to catch up to them, the way he said he would.

This story conveyed the tense war atmosphere and complications of a relationship really well. The characterization was done better than I expected, and the culture of the different environments shown came across pretty strong. I could understand what was going on. This one was probably my favorite of the stories.

The Night of Broken Glass - I vaguely remember this one? It was a bit hard to understand, though.

It’s told from the perspective of a young Chinese boy living in Vienna whose father is a consul general. He does his best to save as many people as possible from the Nazis.

The storytelling of this one felt kind of weak. While the core of this story seems like it was intended to be the war and the war effort, the focus was mostly on the main character’s white stepmother. I didn’t like her at all. She was racist and ignorant and spoiled. She didn’t try to learn Chinese, despite it being her husband’s primary language. She didn’t try to care for her stepson. She cheated on her husband without seeming to even care about the war.

The fact that I can describe her so well but can’t remember the details of the story is a problem.

The climax of this story was Kristallnacht (as you can guess from the name), but there wasn’t a lot of emphasis placed on that event. It didn’t feel nearly as important as the stepmother’s antics with some German man. I think this was supposed to be the event that opens the main character’s eyes to brutality and the reality of the war, but again, all the focus was on that awful bitch.

Everything In Between - this one was a bit hard to follow for me. The way the story was told was very broken up and didn’t leave a lot of explanation. I had to Google a few things to understand what was going on.

The story was told from a present-tense narrative, a Chinese woman reminiscing on her childhood growing up in Port Elizabeth. More specifically, about the racism she and her family faced trying to move into a new house. This one had really good insight regarding white colonialism, but it wasn’t enough for me to care about the story or even really follow it. The one thing I liked was that it addressed how ridiculous it was for white people living in Africa to be racist...toward African people. Literally what did they expect when they came over in their boats?

Belsize Park - this one was very bittersweet, even though I couldn’t really bring myself to care about the characters. The main character, a Chinese-English graduate, plans to introduce his white (and rich) girlfriend to his parents. The whole class and race stigma concept was powerful with this story.

The thing is, I didn’t really care about it. The detail thrown into the story might have made it richer for some other readers, and it probably should have for me considering how much I love atmosphere and visuals. But it just made it feel heavy and detached, since there wasn’t as much emphasis on the character struggles.

And what emphasis there was came across too strong. It felt like the narrative was bouncing between description of the outer world and description of the inner world, and it didn’t click with me.

This story could have been a lot stronger with its character depictions and depiction of internal struggle, but the way it was written felt kind of aimless and didn’t do a great job of explaining where it was going.

Allhallows - this one was probably my least favorite, since I didn’t really see the meaning of the story. I didn’t even remember what happened. I remember not liking the character, since he was a bit of an asshole.

What I do remember of the plot from searching it up online: a deadbeat dad forgets to visit his kids on Halloween to take them trick-or-treating, and comes the next day hoping to make up for it. Somehow he ends up sleeping with some random lady whose kid is a racist little shit.

I’m sorry, that was not a good synopsis, but it shows you how little I cared for this one.

We Two Alone - this one was really long, and I got kind of frustrated at how long it took me to read. I had other books I wanted to read, I wanted to finish the ARC, and I wasn’t really enjoying the anthology that much. But I cared too much to DNF.

This story follows Leonard Xiao and his navigation of life as an Asian-American actor, past forty and still struggling to land roles. I felt really sympathetic for Leonard and his constant struggle to do what he wanted to do without the racism, but I also didn’t care for his character decisions that much. The way he kept brushing off his wife Emily whenever she tried to talk to him, but then getting mad when she seemed not to care about his pursuits, was borderline hypocritical.

I liked how well he was portrayed as being someone blinded by determination, and how this was shown to impact his relationships and his life. It was a little bit reassuring to read about someone older than my parents who still feels lost in life, because as a fifteen-year-old, I’m really hoping I’ll have my adult life together.

Some of the story felt unnecessary, because it kept flashing back to some instances that didn’t really contribute to the plot, but the narration and direction made it pretty clear how things were going.

Overall, this anthology was really insightful toward acts of Asian (Chinese, specifically) hate and the experiences of Asian people throughout history, all across the world. It delivered its statement powerfully and undeniably.

Does that mean it was an enjoyable read? Not really. As you can tell, I didn’t really care about the plot lines all that much. It was a valuable read, but not in terms of entertainment or enjoyment.

Read it if you want more insight on Asian experiences throughout history, but I wouldn’t recommend it in terms of storytelling.

[Bkwmlee · Rating 4 out of 5]

Those familiar with my reading tastes have probably heard me say this way too many times: I’m not usually a huge fan of short story collections because I don’t like the “incomplete” nature of the format, as I always feel like I’m left hanging somehow, plus I oftentimes don’t get the chance to connect to the characters the way I would in a full length novel. Even though it can be a “hit or miss” reading experience for me, I will still pick up a short story collection if the themes or subject matter sound interesting enough to me – especially since, at least recently, I’ve encountered “hits” more than “misses” in the ones I’ve decided to try. Such is the case with Jack Wang’s debut short story collection We Two Alone , which I finished over the course of a busy weekend. This well-written collection consists of seven stories, each of which features a Chinese protagonist from different walks of life, but with the common experience of having to navigate the world as immigrants.

Over the years, I’ve read plenty of stories about the Chinese immigrant experience, but this particular collection stood out in several ways. First was the setting of each story, which spanned not only continents but also decades -- starting in the 1920s and spanning to the modern day, each story takes place in a different part of the world: Canada, China, Austria, South Africa, UK, and 2 states in the U.S. (Florida and New York). Second was the characters, all of whom hailed from different backgrounds (from the poor, uneducated, disenfranchised, to the wealthy and privileged, to the middle class) and professions (doctor, actor, hockey player, student, teacher, etc.). Not only that, each story was also told from a different life perspective -- ranging from an orphaned teenager struggling with identity and acceptance, to a mixed race couple navigating the complexities of an unconventional relationship, to a middle class family experiencing unexpected hurdles when buying a house, to an innocent child inadvertently witnessing the atrocities of war, to an itinerant actor endlessly trying to figure out his life while yearning to reunite with his ex-wife, etc.

Taken together, this is a collection that truly does highlight the diversity of the Chinese diaspora, yet at the same time, it also infers that there is a certain universality to the immigrant experience in terms of discrimination, bias, and racial prejudice that so many of us can relate to, regardless of whether we are from the same cultural or socio-economic background. In this regard, I was actually able to resonate with some aspect of every single story, which is a rare occurrence for me with short story collections (and especially with a collection as diverse as this one). With that said though, this also made the feeling of disappointment greater for me knowing that I was only getting a snippet of each character’s story and would be left to ponder their fate on my own. This is one of the things with short story collections (specifically the ones with no inter-connected characters) that I can’t stand – the feeling of being left hanging. With whatever story I read, I need to have closure – whether good, bad, or ambiguous, doesn’t matter as long I don’t feel like something’s missing or the story is incomplete. But of course, that’s just me -- aside from the lack of closure issue (which is a common feature of most short stories and definitely not exclusive to this book), I still enjoyed this collection immensely and absolutely recommend it. Prior to reading this collection, I had actually never heard of this author before, but I’m happy to have discovered his work and look forward to reading more from him in the future.

Received ARC from HarperVia publishers via Edelweiss.

[Kathleen · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am overjoyed that We Two Alone by Jack Wang was chosen for the Canada Reads 2022 long list. Otherwise, I would have missed reading this impressive and dazzling collection of stories.

The Valkyries tells about Nelson Woo, a young Chinese-Canadian laundry boy who risks his life to play organized hockey in Canada in the 1920s.

The Nature of Things is dedicated to Po, the author's late maternal grandmother. It tells about a Canadian couple getting caught in the outbreak of violence in Shanghai during the Second Sino-Japanese War. You can feel the terrifying atmosphere as they hide from murderous soldiers.

The third story,The Night of Broken Glass, is about the consul general of China attempting to save lives following Kristallnacht in Vienna.

Everything In Between, told from a young girl's point of view, is about the family aspiring to buy a home in South Africa during the rise of apartheid.

We Two Alone, the seventh and final story, is the longest one. Leonard, an actor in New York struggles to keep his career alive while yearning to reconcile with his estranged wife.

"Jack Wang has crafted deeply affecting stories that not only subvert expectations but contend with mortality and delicately draw out the intimacies and failings of love."

[Alexis · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was very much affected by this book, a collection of stories about the Chinese diaspora. There was so much care and research in these stories, and I felt they were very powerful. They were also very sophisticated.

The last story made me cry.

I'm so glad Jack wrote this book, and I look forward to his novel!!

[Daniel Kukwa · Rating 4 out of 5]

The final two stories didn't do anything for me...which is a shame, because the other 5 tales were magnificent: a unique cultural viewpoint into the past, with each story evoking a unique take on very familiar places and events. "The Valkyries" in particular is the most fascinating use of hockey I've ever encountered.

[Ian · Rating 5 out of 5]

Jack Wang’s first collection of short fiction, We Two Alone, is a superior example of the form, beautifully crafted, emotionally resonant, and dramatically satisfying. Wang’s characters are primarily Chinese nationals and the sons and daughters of Chinese immigrants, people who are struggling to acclimatize to shifting geopolitical environments and/or deal with crises that threaten their way of life and sometimes their very survival. Racism is present in many of these stories, either hovering menacingly in the background or playing a dominant role in the lives of Wang’s characters. For instance, “The Valkyries” takes place in Vancouver and Banff shortly after the end of the First World War. Teenage orphan Nelson, who lives in Vancouver’s Chinatown and works in a laundry, loves hockey and is highly skilled, but being Chinese he’s denied the opportunity to play in an organized men’s league. Instead, when he discovers a women’s league, he assumes a disguise, passes himself off as “Nelly,” and becomes one of the stars for his team, the Valkyries. But when his deception is uncovered, the price he pays goes far beyond a mere settling of scores. A remarkable feature of Wang's fiction is his ability to convincingly evoke an assortment of cultural and historical contexts. In “The Nature of Things,” it is 1937. Young Chinese couple Frank and Alice must flee Shanghai because of the escalating hostilities with Japan. Frank, an American-educated physician, puts his pregnant wife on a train to safety but refuses to leave the city himself because of his work. From this point the story chronicles Alice’s desperate yearning and fears for her husband after the Japanese invasion, and her eventual realization that she will never see him again. The narrator of “The Night of Broken Glass” is recalling the time just prior to World War II when he, his father and stepmother lived in Vienna. The narrator’s father is a Chinese diplomat, versed in the ways of the world, wily and pragmatic, and the story tells of the father’s careful navigation of shifting political winds when the Nazis move into Austria and begin victimizing Jews, minorities and foreign nationals. “Everything in Between,” set in South Africa at the beginning of the Apartheid era, describes a Chinese family’s efforts to live a normal life under exceedingly challenging circumstances. “Bellsize Park” takes place in contemporary England and poignantly depicts the doomed relationship of two students: Peter, who is Chinese, and Fiona, who is English. And in “All Hallows” divorced Ernie’s irresponsible nature is thrown into sharp relief when he takes his children, Ben and Toby, trick-or-treating the day after Halloween because he’d failed to show up the night before as he’d promised. As good as these stories are, the outstanding piece in this collection is the masterful novella from which the volume takes its title. Leonard and Emily, both actors, are divorced. Leonard, in his late forties and still hunting for the Big Break, is entering a premature cognitive decline, which he recognizes because it is the same disorder that left his mother debilitated before her death. As he struggles with worsening symptoms, he recalls his years married to Emily, who finally gave up on the dream, retired from acting and left Leonard when he refused to do the same. Wang chronicles their life together from beginning to end: the shared aspirations, thwarted idealism, the minor triumphs countered by heartrending setbacks that marked their marriage and their careers. In the end, a crisis brings Leonard and Emily together one more time to enact a final scene before Leonard slips into the darkness and is unable to remember what they meant to each other. There is an effortless and seamless quality to Jack Wang’s writing that is particularly impressive. The nuts and bolts of craft, the scaffolding of plot, never intrude on the reader’s experience. In each of these tales Wang generates considerable narrative momentum by introducing his characters in place, slowly revealing their hopes and fears as he ramps up the stakes and the tension, and then letting the drama unfold in a manner that is patient and never forced. There is nothing cheap or maudlin going on here. Wang frequently elicits an emotional response from the reader, but without exception this reaction arises naturally out of the drama we’re witnessing. We Two Alone is a thoroughly engaging volume of short fiction by an exceptionally talented author. These are near flawless tales of personal struggle and modern angst: deeply empathetic, humane stories by a writer whose command of form and technique is unfailing.

[Sarah-Hope · Rating 4 out of 5]

Jack Wang's We Two Alone is a somewhat melancholic collection of stories, but one that offers readers a wealth of interesting characters and situations. The stories explore life for Chinese expatriates and their families in a variety of times and settings. There's the diplomat posted to Germany as Hitler is rising to power, a young boy who dreams of playing professional ice hockey, and an aging pair of never-quite-got-their-big-break actors, among others. It's this variety that makes the book particularly compelling as we see the commonalities and differences among these people. This is a book to read when you're feeling reflective, open to considering life's nuances and the big impacts of small moments.

I received an electronic ARC of this title from the publisher via NetGalley. The opinions are my own.

[Jasmine · Rating 3 out of 5]

We Two Alone is a collection of short stories about the racism and struggles that the characters face due to their Chinese ethnicity. The seven stories span from the 1920s to the present and take place in Vancouver, New York, Tallahassee, Shanghai, Vienna, the UK, and South Africa.

I enjoyed the first story, The Valkyries, about a teenage boy in 1920s Vancouver who is barred from playing hockey due to his ethnicity, so he dresses up as a girl to play on a women's team, and the last story, We Two Alone about a struggling actor in New York who is trying to reconcile with his estranged wife. However, the other stories fell flat for me and I was dissatisfied with the the endings -- the stories felt incomplete to me, which is the reason I had been reluctant to read short story collections.

[Verónica Fleitas Solich · Rating 4 out of 5]

Each story a world that revolves around the analysis of cultural heritage, generational clashes, expectations for the future.
Interesting.

[Virginia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Halfway through the first period, when she dropped a perfect pass in the Amazons' zone, Nelson cradled the puck on his blade and aimed it for his favourite spot: top shelf, far side.
The crowd roared as he leapt into Tessa's arms.

I was so knocked down by the first story, "The Valkyries," that I almost didn't continue with the rest of the book. The beginning is as warm and engaging as a well-written YA novel, all young enthusiasm and passion and whoa, hockey! However the ending morphed into unexpected horror and I had to take a break and reread the last section again. How very much I wanted the best outcome for Nelson! The other short stories were beautifully written but not nearly as involving. The novella "We Two Alone" was the strongest, with wonderful characters I really cared about. Perfect as it was, but would have worked well as a longer novel. I will watch out for future work by this Canadian author.

[Yvonne Boon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved all the short stories. Well written and dives deep into the understanding and development of each character and their stories. I learned some bits of Chinese immigrant history along the way. I love that these collection of stories span different continents and nearly a century in time, each unique in it's own. However, despite the distances in time and space, there's still a connecting theme between some stories- of diaspora and their generations trying to find a place of belonging.

The Nature of Things reminds me of my own grandparents' histories. It's like reading a written out version of the quick stories I've heard my parents and relatives throw around about the war. What my grandparents didn't speak about in detail, another version got written out here.

[Janice · Rating 4 out of 5]

As I attempt to read the Canada Reads nominations for this year, I was pleasantly surprised by this book. I am not usually a fan of short stories, but the author was able to create a depth in his stories that is not usually the case. It showed the struggle of Chinese immigrants throughout the last century.

[andrea · Rating 3 out of 5]

i badly wanted to love this because of its premise (a collection of short stories illuminating the chinese immigrant experience), but i felt like i just wasn’t as invested as i could’ve been if each story had been more fleshed out or if it didn’t try squeezing so much action into a couple of pages.

in any case, fave stories were the first and last one!

[Longmei Ge · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.8 star average

[Isabelle · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was ok. I did really like We Too Alone and Belsize Park, but Allhallows and Everything in Between fell very flat. I always forget how much I enjoy storytelling in the form of short stories so this collection was a nice change in pace from my usual novels.

[Harvee Lau · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this book at different times - the wonder of reading short stories I've found is being able to read them as you wish, over time or all at once. The collection is described as covering the Chinese diaspora across the globe over the past hundred years, and yet there are only seven stories, a few heartbreaking. Cultural and racial prejudice, the demands of society and family, and the intrusion of real life impact the relationship between people in each of these stories. This explains the title of the short story collection, We Two Alone.

[Diana N. · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a book of compiled short stories focused on different Chinese immigrants. I liked some stories a lot better than others since a few lacked substance. My favorite was "We Two Alone" since it felt like a whole story throughout time of Leonard's life and acting career instead of just a snapshot. I also enjoyed "The Valkyries" and "The Night of Broken Glass."

[Laurie Burns · Rating 4 out of 5]

Woah! A moving collection of short stories, spanning the Chinese immigrant experience, through many years and many countries.
There are some very moving stories here, and often very sad.
I have worked with many Chinese immigrants through my job, and I thought this book gained me a bit of a better understand and was really strongly written.

[Amanda · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wang beautifully touches on the intersection of the Chinese identity relating to gender, racism, sexuality. Each story highlights integral moments in both Chinese and international history to illustrate the importance of one's concept of home, acceptance and freedom.

[Suzanne Montigny · Rating 4 out of 5]

A Powerful Last Story

The last story in this collection was very powerful. It left me in despair. There I was rooting for the guy, and then…

[Kathleen Ninke · Rating 4 out of 5]

What a perfectly lovely book of short stories! Each has a main character that is a Chinese immigrant or recently descended from one. Besides that, the settings (time and place) vary wildly. Racism appears as a regular theme, yes, but mostly it’s just people living life.

In this way, I’m reminded of my on-air interview with Latinx scholars after “American Dirt” came out, dramatically chronicling a fictional account of a Mexican woman’s journey over the southern border to the US. The scholars’ basic message of general distaste for what they called “trauma porn” was “Why can’t we just have content about a Colombian woman like, going grocery shopping and dealing with a work conflict?” Their point being, can we please get content about BIPOC that is just about living life and not about their existence being incessantly traumatic for others’ enjoyment?

To me, this is that read. The blatant and subtle racism against AAPI and specifically Chinese people is hardly ignored, don’t get me wrong—but really these are stories about basic humanity: love, loss, insecurity, success, failure, divorce, money, drugs, and well, hockey 🤷🏻‍♀️

Have to add, however, that while I enjoyed this every time I picked it up, there was an X factor missing from most of the stories for me. I don’t know, just that little something that makes you feel a fiction story as much as you feel your own life—wasn’t there for me mostly. Absolutely worth the read though!

(Thank you to the publisher for this advanced release copy in exchange for my honest opinion. Am I…doing this right?)

[Phyllis | Mocha Drop · Rating 3 out of 5]

“I was born on one continent; I will die on another. This is the story of many. It’s everything in between that’s different.”

We Two Alone is a collection of short stories that reflects on the causes and challenges of the Chinese Diaspora along with the impact it had on subsequent generations. The stories offer differing points of view - the old and young, male and female, privileged and impoverished - during different eras in various countries. There are themes of racism, xenophobia, injustice, discrimination, segregation, maltreatment that are constants throughout the stories as anyone labeled “other” or perceived as “alien,” “exotic,” or “foreign,’ may have experienced in varying degrees at some point. In each of the stories, we often see dreams deferred but buoyed by hopes and prayers for them to manifest for their children and/or children’s children.

The stories are well-conceived, well-written, and although considered works of fiction, I can easily imagine each of them reflecting a bit of semblance of someone’s truth or experiences.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher to allow me to read/review in exchange for an honest review.

[Ming · Rating 2 out of 5]

Emotionally flat.

I really like the concept here. However, the writing is descriptive and not evocative. The author tells and explains and that left me unmoved.

If you're up for something that simple and not taxing and that describes seven cases of Chinese being mistreated during different eras and in different locations, this would be the title for you.

I enjoyed this interview with Wang: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nSGbY...

For a somewhat similar concept that's affecting and compelling, pick up The Fortunes.

[Ness (Vynexa) · Rating 3 out of 5]

Thank you to the publisher for providing me with an early copy of We Two Alone

As stated above, I was provided an early copy of We Two Alone the day before it came out, which didn't give me time to work it into my ARC schedule. So I decided to get to it on my own time.

I listened to this collection via audiobook. It was enjoyable. My favorite story was the main story which is the title of the book. It was the longest story, but it was the one that captivated me the most.
It is a good collection that follows different Chinese people from different years/eras and walks of life.

It was a good read to consume while working my shift.

⭐️3.5 STARS⭐️

[Fraser Simons · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ambitious, and I think does pull it off. But, as with all story collections, I find it mixed, overall. The themes around hope for the future and heritage/legacy are compelling. There is one story in particular I just did not connect with at all however (the hockey one).

[Tomiko Robson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Generally liked this collection of short stories but particularly loved the last one, “We Two Alone”. I’m curious to see if the author develops any into longer works - many felt as though they could be chapters of something bigger.

[Anneka · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was left “wanting” with each story. There could have been “more”…

[Stephanie · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.9/5 Great writer/storyteller.

[thatgreenguy · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was beautifully done. A real gem that I'd recommend to anyone who loves historical fiction - or wants to fall in love with it!

[Juan Chong · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book was decent enough it had a few good stories, but I did feel like the best was the last. Not much more to add to it other than I wish it was better. 2.5 stars