Synopsis – Bamboo Heart: A Daughter’s Quest
From award-winning author Ann Bennett comes a captivating WW2 novel of love and survival – a daughter’s journey of discovery and a soldier’s strength in the bleakest of times.
When Laura Ellis, a successful city lawyer, arrives home to see her dying father Tom, a mysterious stranger is watching the house. This leads her to embark on a journey to discover their connection.
To do so, she has to retrace her father’s steps; to the Bridge on the River Kwai: where as a prisoner of war of the Japanese, Tom endured disease, torture and endless days of slavery; and to the beautiful island of Penang, to uncover his secrets from the 1930s.
For Tom made himself a promise: to return home. Not to the grey streets of London, where he once lived, but to Penang, where he found paradise and love.
As Laura searches for the truths Tom refused to tell her, in the places where he once suffered, lived and loved, she will finally find out the story behind his survival, and discover her own path to love and happiness..
This book has previously been published both as Bamboo Heart and as A Daughter’s Quest. It won the won the award for fiction published in Asia, Asian Books Blog, 2015 and was shortlisted for “Best Fiction Title” in the Singapore Book Awards 2016.
Praise for A Daughter’s Quest.
‘A powerful story brilliantly told. Five Stars.’ Richard Kandler, author of The Prisoner List.
‘This outstanding novel is a powerful reminder of what prisoners of the Japanese suffered…‘ Amazon reviewer.
Author Bio
Ann Bennett is a British author of historical fiction. Her first book, Bamboo Heart: A Daughter’s Quest, was inspired by researching her father’s experience as a prisoner of war on the Thai-Burma Railway and by her own journey to uncover his story. It won the Asian Books Blog prize for fiction published in Asia in 2015, and was shortlisted for the best fiction title in the Singapore Book Awards 2016.
That initial inspiration led her to write more books about WWII in Southeast Asia – Bamboo Island: The Planter’s Wife, A Daughter’s Promise, Bamboo Road: The Homecoming, The Tea Planter’s Club, The Amulet, and The Fortune Teller of Kathmandu. Along with The Lotus House, published in October 2024, they make up the Echoes of Empire Collection.
Ann is also the author of The Oriental Lake Collection – The Lake Pavilion and The Lake Palace, both set in British India during the 1930s and WWII, and The Lake Pagoda and The Lake Villa, set in French Indochina during the same period. A Rose in the Blitz – the first in the Sisters of War series and set in London during WWII, was published in March 2024.
The Lake Pagoda won a bronze medal for historical fiction in Asia in the Coffee Pot Book Club, Book of the Year awards 2022. The Fortune Teller of Kathmandu won a silver medal for dual-timeline historical fiction, and A Rose in the Blitz won bronze in the historical romance category in the Coffee Pot Book Club, Book of the Year awards 2024.
The Runaway Sisters, USA Today bestselling The Orphan House, The Child Without a Home and The Forgotten Children are set in Europe during the same era and are published by Bookouture. Her latest book, The Stolen Sisters, published on 29th November 2024 is the follow-up to The Orphan List (published by Bookouture in August this year) and is set in Poland and Germany during WWII.
A former lawyer, Ann is married with three grown up sons and a granddaughter and lives in Surrey, UK. For more details, please visit www.annbennettauthor.com
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Book Excerpt
Tom Ellis is a prisoner of war on the Thai-Burma railway suffering starvation and brutal treatment. He dreams about his past life in Penang to try to give him hope…
Tom lay on his bunk, listening. The grunts and sighs of the weary men tossing and turning on their beds of bamboo mingled with the sounds of the jungle: the calls and cries of the night creatures, the drone of insects, the whine of mosquitoes. These nocturnal sounds reminded him that there was life outside the horror of his daily routine, and that the vast jungle surrounding and enveloping them was seething and pulsating with life, vibrant with colour and sound. Life that never ceased, and carried on oblivious to the ordeal that was being played out in its midst. This thought, as he lay awake on the bare bamboo at night and listened for the whoop of monkeys or the cry of a jungle cat, kept him alive.
That, and the thought of her face. He didn’t need to get her photograph out of his top pocket. He could feel it there, cool and flat against his chest. If he shut his eyes and concentrated for a long time he still had a perfect picture of her face the last time they had met. The time they had said goodbye at the docks in Georgetown. She’d looked up at him, a question in her eyes.
Perhaps she’d wanted Tom to ask her to marry him, and not leave her wondering what their future held. How he wished now that he’d seized the moment when he had the chance, that he had not left the question hanging in the air like that. But he would ask her, if he got out of all this. The thought of being with her kept him going. If all else deserted him he could return to that thought, and it would not fail him. He would get back to Penang one day and find her, and then he would marry her.
His mind wandered back to the day that had changed his life, had set in train the chain of events that had taken him to the tropical island he would make his home, would grow to love. That momentous day in 1938 when he had walked out of work and slammed out of his parents’ house. He remembered wandering the streets aimlessly for a while. It had been a perfect autumn day, the air cool and refreshing. The trees in the squares of Bloomsbury were turning all the shades of red and gold. He sat on a bench in Russell Square for a while, eating an ice cream, watching the nannies play with their charges on the grass.
He’d wondered what he was going to do. He supposed he would have to find another job. But who would give him one without a reference? Finishing the ice cream, he carried on walking aimlessly in the direction of the river. He strolled through Covent Garden Market where there was much clattering and shouting as the stalls were being put away for the day, and then found himself on the Strand. He was just thinking that he would make for Embankment Gardens and sit there for a while, when he walked past the office of an employment agency.
It was almost five o’ clock then, and a man in overalls was moving a portable sign from the pavement. He’d often wondered subsequently what direction his life would have taken if he had arrived on the Strand five minutes later.
‘Strong fit young men wanted for outdoor work in Malaya,’against a backdrop of palm trees and a white beach bordering a glittering sea.
Tom went into the office. The young man behind the counter looked up wearily and took down his details. He obviously wanted to head home for the day. He took the papers through a door into the back of the office and came back almost instantly.
‘It’s your lucky day. Mr. Andrews has just got time to see you before he leaves.’
Tom was ushered into a stuffy little office, more of a cabin really. It was furnished with just a desk and two chairs. Mr. Andrews was a large thick-set Scot with a bushy moustache and patches of sweat under his arms.
He explained that he worked for the United Rubber Company, which was recruiting young men to manage workers on the rubber estates all over Malaya. There was a vacancy that they still needed to fill – the job of overseer for a small plantation on the island of Penang.
‘Georgetown is an important centre for the rubber industry. That plantation is a bit of a showcase for us. We need someone trustworthy and presentable to oversee it for us. You look as though you might fit the bill.’
He then asked Tom a series of routine questions, and finally enquired about who would be able to give him an employment reference.
‘Well, I’m not sure about that. It’s a bit difficult. You see, as a matter of fact, I walked out this morning. We had a bit of a difference of opinion.’
‘Look, Mr. Ellis. You’re just the sort of material we are looking for. You seem a genuine sort of chap. We are not going to make too many difficulties about this problem with your last employer. I wouldn’t like it to become a stumbling block. Is there anyone, anyone at all who could vouch for you, who could simply write a letter to say that you worked at this firm for five years?’
Tom instantly thought of Gerry Buttle, the chipper court clerk at Arbuthnot and Boodle. Gerry was always coming up with new money-making schemes. Tom was sure that Gerry would be prepared to write him a reference if he made it worth his while.
‘If you can bring it back tomorrow, you can sail on Monday. As I said, a simple letter would be more than adequate.’
Gerry was quite amenable to writing a most glowing reference, especially after being treated to several pints at the Queen’s Head on Cheapside and pocketing the five pound note that Tom slipped him. He even entered into the spirit of the agreement and suggested writing it on the firm’s notepaper.
Tom sailed for Malaya the following Monday in the company of a group of other young single men, each with his own reason for heading East. He spent most of the voyage lying on his bunk in the tiny cabin, or on the deck, reading. He had the occasional drink, but managed to resist the temptation to fritter away all his savings drinking at the bar or gambling at blackjack in the games room.
