Suzanne Evans brings a novelist’s eye and an historian’s diligence to the story of Ethel Mulvany, a small-town girl with audacious ambitions and boundless confidence who embarks on a quixotic tour of the Asian Pacific on the brink of WWII. Amid the perils of war, she proves a courageous and clever survivor, enduring imprisonment, starvation and torture during the war, and a creative and resourceful entrepreneur and benefactor in the life she rebuilds for herself in Canada after her liberation. In Suzanne Evans’ hands, Mulvaney’s story becomes moving, inspiring and unforgettable.
~Jury statement, Ottawa Book Award, 2021
Winner of the Crieghton Book Award (biography) 2022
Winner of the Ottawa Book Award (non-fiction) 2021
Winner of the Taste Canada Book Award (culinary narrative) 2021
Winner of the Forward INDIES Book Award (biography) 2020