What happens when a mother and her daughters are separated; who do they become when they believe it might be forever?

1953, the eve of the Cartwright’s departure from Malaya. Eleven-year-old Emma can’t understand why they’re leaving without their mother; why her taciturn father is refusing to answer questions.

Lydia arrives home to an empty house – there’s no sign of her husband Alec or her daughters. Panic stricken, she embarks on a dangerous journey to find them through the hot and civil-war-torn Malayan jungle – one that only the power of a mother’s love can help her to survive.

Dinah Jefferies was born in Malaya in 1948 and moved to England at the age of nine. She has worked in education, once lived in a ‘rock ‘n roll’ commune and, more recently, been an exhibiting artist. She spends her days writing, with time off to make tiaras and dinosaurs with her grandchildren. The Separation is her first book.

‘A tense and steamy 1950s Malaya, beautifully described. I loved it’
Lucinda Riley, author of Hothouse Flower and The Girl on the Cliff