It’s hard to neatly sum up A Town Like Alice. Jean’s search for Joe leads her to a desolate Australian outpost called Willstown, where she finds a challenge that will draw on all the resourcefulness and spirit that carried her through her war-time ordeals. But it turns out that they have a gift for her as well: the news that the young Australian soldier, Joe Harmon, who had risked his life to help the women, had miraculously survived. However, an unexpected inheritance inspires her to return to Malaya to give something back to the villagers who saved her life.

A few years after the war, Jean is back in England, the nightmare behind her. Jean Paget, a young Englishwoman living in Malaya, is captured by the invading Japanese and forced on a brutal seven-month death march with dozens of other women and children. Nevil Shute’s most beloved novel, a tale of love and war, follows its enterprising heroine from the Malayan jungle during World War II to the rugged Australian outback. My pick for this week’s Flashback Friday: Other than that, the sky’s the limit! Join me, please, and let us all know: what are the books you’ve read that you always rave about? What books from your past do you wish EVERYONE would read? Pick something from five years ago, or go all the way back to the Canterbury Tales if you want.

Must have been originally published 5 or more years ago.

Has to still be available, preferably still in print.Has to be something you’ve read yourself.Here are the Flashback Friday book selection guidelines: Flashback Friday is my own little weekly tradition, in which I pick a book from my reading past to highlight - and you’re invited to join in!

A town called alice