Town Like Alice, A (MCL)

A gripping story of love and bravery set in Malaya, London and Australia
Jean Paget, a young English woman, is captured by the Japanese army in Malaya during WWII. She is forced on a brutal march across the country with a group of women and children. During this appalling ordeal she befriends Joe Harman, an Australian soldier who risks his own life to help.

A few years later back in England, Jean receives an unexpected inheritance. She decides to use the money to repay the Malayan people who risked their lives to help her and her fellow prisoners during the war so she travels back to the village where they stayed. From there she travels on to Australia in search of lost love. Cut off in the Australian outback and thousands of miles from home, Jean once again draws on her admirable determination and entrepreneurial spirit when she sets out to build a thriving community.

This Macmillan Collector’s Library edition features an afterword by bestselling novelist Jenny Colgan.