The Blue Roses is a novel of literary fiction. It follows a man and a married couple in New York City, whose intricate relationship oscillates among friendship, love, love triangle, and even obsession.
Mark, the narrator and an American, works for the United Nations in New York as a personnel officer. His friend, Hans, is a German who also works for the UN as an economist. Hans's wife, Yukari, is a Japanese woman and a professional violinist who survived leukemia. One day, Mark encounters Hans and Yukari in a museum. As Mark likes painting, Hans enjoys opera singing, and Yukari loves the violin, the three foster a friendship through classical music, opera, and art. Mark resists feeling drawn into his friend's wife. One evening over dinner, they discover that their families were acquainted generations ago. This knowledge of legacy bonds them as a threesome. During the summer, inspired by the beauty of Yukari in a light-blue dress at the UN garden, Hans and Mark secretly plant blue roses there for her. The blue roses later blossom. The three admire their blue roses-a symbol of their friendship and deep bond.
Two other women complement the story. One is Mark's ex-wife, Francine, who is Swiss-born and now married to another of Mark's friends in the UN, Shem Tov, an Israeli. The other is Mark's high school sweetheart, Jane, to whom he was briefly engaged. Francine encourages Mark to be happy with Yukari. Jane again wants to marry Mark, but he is ambivalent about her.
In the meantime, Yukari becomes pregnant with Hans's child and happily settles into her role as expectant mother. Mark, Hans, and Yukari celebrate New Year's Eve at the height of their friendship and happiness when it seems that nothing can go wrong.
In January, Hans loses an opportunity for a promotion. Disappointed, he decides to go to a UN peacekeeping mission in Sarajevo in to rediscover a reason for working for the UN. But he dies there in a helicopter crash. In New York, Mark helps Yukari with her childbirth. Yukari gives birth to a beautiful baby girl, Anne. Mark and Yukari become engaged. They plan to marry and raise Anne as their child. Then, suddenly Yukari dies of relapsed leukemia. Losing his two best friends in three months one by one, Mark is now left with Anne.
Jane visits Mark and proposes that they marry and raise Anne as their child. Mark is moved by her love and compassion. But in the end, he declines her offer. He decides to raise Anne by himself as his child to cherish the memory of sacred friendship among Yukari, Hans, and him. Francine and Shem Tov praise Mark's resolve and promise to assist him.
The novel ends with the scene where Mark visits the UN garden with Anne when blue roses are blooming. The blue roses delight Anne while Mark sees a vision of Hans and Yukari watching them in peace from behind their blue roses.
