Lemmie’s compelling and compassionate portrait of a young girl in post-WWII Japan is meticulously researched and beautifully crafted. “This virtuosic debut enthralled me from the very first page.

A bold historical portrait of a woman overcoming oppression…” - Kirkus “Lemmie’s sweeping historical backdrop, from the post–World War II decline of minor royalty through the expanding liberations of the 1960s, is breathtaking…. “ epic, twisty debut… Sometimes bleak, sometimes hopeful, Lemmie’s heartbreaking story of familial obligations packs an emotional wallop.” - Publishers Weekly This is a well-researched and eye-opening tale, told with compassion that breathes through each page.” -Abi Daré, New York Times bestselling author of The Girl with the Louding Voice Moving and honest and at times intense, Asha Lemmie takes us on an emotional journey that spans years, one which sheds light on Noriko’s family traditions, prejudices, struggles, triumphs and ultimate transformation.

“A hugely compelling debut about Noriko, a mixed race girl growing up in Japan after WWII. This coming of age tale about a biracial girl in postwar Japan is an assured, confident debut by a talented new author.” -Kristin Hannah, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Nightingale “ Fifty Words for Rain is a lovely, heartrending story about love and loss, prejudice and pain, and the sometimes dangerous, always durable ties that link a family together. Spanning decades and continents, Fifty Words for Rain is a dazzling epic about the ties that bind, the ties that give you strength, and what it means to be free. Because now that Nori has glimpsed a world in which perhaps there is a place for her after all, she is ready to fight to be a part of it-a battle that just might cost her everything. But when chance brings her older half-brother, Akira, to the estate that is his inheritance and destiny, Nori finds in him an unlikely ally with whom she forms a powerful bond-a bond their formidable grandparents cannot allow and that will irrevocably change the lives they were always meant to lead. Obedient to a fault, Nori accepts her solitary life, despite her natural intellect and curiosity. Her grandparents take her in, only to conceal her, fearful of a stain on the royal pedigree that they are desperate to uphold in a changing Japan. The child of a married Japanese aristocrat and her African American GI lover, Nori is an outsider from birth. And she will not resist the scalding chemical baths she receives daily to lighten her skin.

She will not fight her confinement to the attic of her grandparents’ imperial estate. She will not question why her mother abandoned her with only these final words. Such is eight-year-old Noriko “Nori” Kamiza’s first lesson.

Fifty Words for Rain by Asha Lemmie