November 9, 1938: Kristallnacht, the Nazis unleash a night of terror for Jews all across Germany. Meanwhile, the Japanese Imperial Army rampages through China and tightens its stranglehold on Shanghai, a city that becomes the last haven for thousands of desperate European Jews. Dr. Franz Adler, a renowned surgeon, is swept up in the wave of anti-Semitic violence and flees to Shanghai with his daughter. At a refugee hospital, Franz meets an enigmatic nurse, Soon Yi Sunny Mah. The chemistry between them is intense and immediate, but Sunnyâ's life is shattered when a drunken Japanese sailor murders her father. The danger escalates for Shanghaiâ's Jews as the Japanese attack Pearl Harbor. Facing starvation and disease, Franz struggles to keep the refugee hospital open and protect his family from a terrible fate. The Far Side of the Sky focuses on a short but extraordinary period of Chinese, Japanese, and Jewish history when cultures converged and heroic sacrifices were part of the everyday quest for survival.

Return to World War II Shanghai in Dan Kalla's thrilling historical novel Rising Sun, Falling Shadow, the sequel to The Far Side of the Sky It’s 1943 and the Japanese juggernaut has swallowed Shanghai and the rest of eastern China, snaring droves of American and British along with thousands of “stateless” German Jewish refugees. Despite the hostile environs, newlyweds Dr. Franz Adler and his wife, Sunny, adjust to life running the city’s only hospital for refugee Jews. Bowing to Nazi pressure, the Japanese force twenty thousand Jewish refugees, including the Adlers, to relocate to a one-square-kilometer “Shanghai Ghetto.” Heat, hunger, and tropical diseases are constant threats. But the ghetto also breeds miraculous resilience. Music, theater, sports, and Jewish culture thrive despite what are at times subhuman conditions. Navigating subversion and espionage, Nazi treachery and ever-worsening conditions while living under the heel of the Japanese military, the Adlers struggle to keep the hospital open and their family safe and united.

Espionage, passion, and battlefield the loves and fears of one remarkable family unfold against the Second World War’s Pacific theatre Gripping and poignant, this is the epic final chapter in Daniel Kalla’s wartime trilogy, bringing to an unforgettable conclusion the story begun in The Far Side of the Sky and Rising Sun, Falling Shadow It’s 1944 and the Japanese are losing the war, but Shanghai is more dangerous than ever, particularly for the Adler family. After fleeing Nazi Europe, Dr. Franz Adler and his teenage daughter, Hannah, have adjusted to life in their strange adopted city, but they are now imprisoned in the Shanghai Ghetto for refugee Jews. Franz is compelled to work as a surgeon for the hated Japanese military, while struggling to keep the city’s woefully undersupplied refugee hospital functioning. Meanwhile, his beloved Eurasian wife, fellow surgeon Sunny, delivers a baby boy born to a neighborhood teenager who wants nothing to do with the child; Sunny is determined to raise him as her own. When an enigmatic priest arrives at the hospital with an injured man who turns out be a downed American pilot, Sunny is recruited into a spy ring, providing crucial information to the Allies about the city’s port. Inadvertently, Hannah is drawn into the perilous operation, just as she becomes drawn to the controversial movement of Zionism and a Jewish homeland in Palestine. When the Japanese launch a major new offensive against the Chinese, Franz is forced to do the he is sent inland to work as a field doctor on the frontlines. There, he must contend with his tangled loyalties, aerial bombings overhead, and his uncertain feelings for a vulnerable Canadian nurse. In 1945, American B-52s begin bombing Shanghai in strategic raids, putting thousands of Chinese citizens and refugees in grave danger. While the war seems to be winding down in the Far East, many questions remain unanswered for the Adlers. As the bombers circle ominously overhead, they must now struggle for more than simple safety. For the first time in many war-riven years, they now face the challenge of re-envisioning their lives, and the prospect of forging a hopeful path forward for the future—if they can first survive. PRAISE FOR THE FAR SIDE OF THE SKY : “An amazing novel.” — HUFFINGTON POST “The novel never falters... Readers are sure to develop a genuine interest in the characters’ fates.” — VANCOUVER SUN “Thoroughly satisfying.” — NATIONAL POST