Sunrise at Kusatsu Harbor by Dan Maloney

Fiction

Mieko and Tori are young lovers, determined to spend the rest of their lives together when WWII starts. Mieko is sent off to work in a prisoner camp in Japan and come up with a weapon that the Japanese can use to end the war. While Mieko is at the camp, the bomb is dropped on his home of Hiroshima. He sneaks out of the camp so that he can go home to see if his family or Tori has survived. Tori did survive, and starts making her way to the camp to find Mieko as he's the only one she has left. The two end up missing each other and then the Nagasaki bomb is dropped, which severely injures and disfigures Tori. She decides she can never be with Mieko because he will only feel sorry for her and Mieko decides he must make the Americans pay for what they did and goes to the USA.

This book is a short one about love and forgiveness. It's a nice love story and the message of forgiveness is quite strong, on both the Japanese and American side. There's a twist at the end of the book that I didn't mind but can understand why some would not like it.

First Line: "I have always loved my wife."

Rating:
(4/5)