The Rice Mother by Rani Manicka

The very gentle story of Lakshmi, who has an arranged marriage to Ayah a widower with two children. Lakshmi returns to Malaysia with her new husband and finds that financially things are not as they were promised and so follows a life of hardship, love, duty and family life. The book follows the family from their six children and various spouses, hardships and the Second World War when the Japanese invaded, and the shocking atrocities that occurred, and the diaries that one of Lakshmi's children leaves behind