Meet Siobhan Daiko - author of In My Lady's Shadow

Siobhan Daiko is a new (to me) author I’ve been enjoying. I read her first novel In my Lady’s Shadow last year and am looking forward to The Orchid Tree which was inspired by her childhood in post war Hong Kong.

Her grandparents had been interned by the Japanese in the ex-colony from 1942 to 1945, and it was while Siobhan was researching their life in the internment camp that the idea for the novel was born. She wanted to bring alive a time and place that no longer exists, but one that will forever be in her heart.

Blurb from the back cover of In My Lady's Shadow:

Grappling her own demons and the after-effects of a disaster, Fern battles to keep hold of her sanity as she is snatched back in time and lives the life of Cecilia, a young woman at the court of Queen Caterina Cornaro, near Venice, in the early 16th century. Luca, a local architect, comes to Fern's aid when Cecilia embarks on a passionate affair with the artist Zorzo. Echoes of the past manifest themselves increasingly in the present through a series of startling coincidences until past and present collide.

Blurb from the back cover of The Orchid Tree:

Fifteen year-old Kate Wolseley lives a rarefied life of wealth and privilege in the expatriate community. But when the Japanese take over the colony in December 1941, she’s interned in squalid Stanley Camp with her parents. Forty miles away, in Macau, Sofia Rodrigues’ suspicions are aroused when her father invites a Japanese family to dinner, an event which leads to a breach between Sofia and her controlling half-brother, Leo. Enduring cramped conditions, humiliation, disease, and starvation, Kate befriends seventeen-year-old Charles – who’s half Chinese - and they give their hearts to each other under the orchid tree. Can their love survive the war?

In December 1948, Kate returns to Hong Kong, determined to put the past behind her. Sofia dreams of leaving Macau and starting a new life, and she won’t let anyone, not even Leo, stop her. A young Englishman, James, becomes the link between Kate and Sofia. The communist-nationalist struggle in China spills over into the colony, catapulting the protagonists into the turmoil with disastrous consequences.

You can read in depth about The Orchid Tree in a questions and answers piece here: https://siobhandaiko.wordpress.com/2015/01/19/meet-kate-the-main-character-of-the-orchid-tree/

The Orchid Tree can be pre-ordered now for just 99p.

 

Siobhan blogs regularly about writing and her life of romance and adventure in Hong Kong and Italy at 

http://siobhandaiko.wordpress.com/

You can connect with her on 

Twitter @siobhandaiko 

and her Facebook page 

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Siobhan-Daiko-Author/410702635692883?fref=ts