Belinda Alexandra: White Gardenia

By MARGIE THOMSON

One for the girls, this has all the ingredients to be a popular book on the beach this summer: a sweeping historical romance that moves from a small village on the Russian-Chinese border in the final days of World War II, to the glamour of Shanghai, to a desolate island in the Philippines, to 1950s Sydney, to Moscow in the Brezhnev era. It is shot through with the horrors of war and revolution, but also with enduring friendships and, eventually, romantic love. The heroine, Anya, is beautiful and intelligent, although with a lot of growing up to do.

There's never a dull moment. Alexandra, a young Australian, is a born storyteller who has done the historical legwork to bring this saga to life.

This novel is based on the story of her grandmother and mother, White Russians who had fled the Russian Revolution to become part of the Russian expat community in Harbin, and the stories of others like them who joined the great wave of refugees searching for a home at the end of the war.

Like Anya in the novel, Alexandra's mother was born in China and considered it her home - until the Japanese made their brutal way through the country towards the end of the war, followed by the Chinese revolutionaries. Anya's mother makes a deal to save her daughter's life: she goes to a labour camp in Russia; Anya, aged just 13, escapes to friends in Shanghai.

It is Anya's uncertainty whether her mother is alive, that forms the emotional backbone to the story.

There are weaknesses: too swift developments in character and plot, and one or two unlikely twists sometimes spoil the pace. But this is one of those books that almost reads itself: a 500-page, emotionally engaging sprawl.

It's timely, too. While the refugees in this story are European, they were nevertheless reviled and campaigned against - "bloody reffos" - by some Australians, just as today's refugees and immigrants are.

At least White Gardenia personalises the refugee experience, and perhaps we can extrapolate from this to a realisation that all refugees have extraordinary stories to tell.

Maybe this novel will encourage insight and sympathy for our contemporary wanderers, almost all of whom, like the characters in this story, just want somewhere to call home.

HarperCollins

$31.99