Yun Ling is the only survivor from a hidden Japanese prison camp in Malaya’s highlands during the second world war. Trying to swallow her hatred of the Japanese, she becomes an apprentice to the skilled Aritomo to learn the techniques of creating a Japanese garden she wishes to dedicate to the sister she lost in the prison camp. But there are secrets she wants to uncover — where was the prison camp she was locked up in for over three years? Where are her sister’s bones? Why has Aritomo never returned to Japan?

This is an insight into Malay before independence and its struggles to overcome WWII and the internal fighting after the war as well as principles in designing a Japanese garden.

• Other Asian 5 out of 5s