BAMBOO HEART: A DAUGHTER'S QUEST by ANN BENNETT.
Genre ... Historical Fiction – Historical Romance – Historical Asian Fiction
Publication Date ... 2014
Estimated Page Count ... 325
Standalone Novel in a collection of novels set in SE Asia entitled Echoes of Empire
Author Content Warnings ... It depicts battle scenes from WW2 in Malaya and also upsetting and brutal treatment of POWs by Japanese guards and soldiers.
Purchase Link ... https://books2read.com/u/mllPNW
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.
Necessary and historically accurate and yet, for all of that, given its content of WW2 scenes from Malaya including the brutal treatment of Prisoners Of War {POWs} by both Japanese guards and soldiers, this was not always an easy read, in fact I'd go as far as to say that whilst not gratuitous at times lots of the descriptions of the conditions and the treatment of the POWs at the hands of their Japanese captors made for horrific reading.
A story of family, love, loyalty, hardship and endurance with a duel timeline that depicts the events endured by Tom, a POW during WW2 and, his daughter, Laura, who many, many years later retraces the footsteps of her father whilst working out some of the issues in her own life; one of those issues being her relationship with Luke, a man who, in sharp contrast to her father, is selfish and egotistical. Though I admired how the author linked both aspects together I have to say it was Tom's story that I found incredibly gripping and poignant, Laura's, hmm, less so, no doubt in part due to what I perceived as her insensitivity towards her father in the earlier chapters of the book.
Essentially what I found to be an interesting read, however, I felt soooo frustrated when it came to what I perceived to be the trite struggles between Laura and Luke to the point that I became, what, resentful{?} of time devoted to this aspect of the story ... and then there was the ending which I felt to be disappointingly anti-climatic.
Still, something that bit different when it comes to WW2 fiction, I must admit to having become tired of books of this genre {of which there seem a monumental amount} in which young women in cities such as Liverpool find themselves either working in ammunition factories, as land girls or as nurses; Bamboo Heart: A Daughter's Quest is a powerful read set in a period of time that we will do well never to forget.
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
With thanks to Rachel of Rachel's Random Resources for organising a paper copy. One of several bloggers participating in the Blog Tour/Book Birthday Blitz of this book, agree or disagree with me, all opinions are my own; no financial compensation was asked for nor given; threats of violence towards my favourite teddy bear went unheeded as did promises of chocolate.
As well as on Pen and Paper this review {or links to it} has been shared on my personal FB page, other book sites on FB, Pinterest, GoodReads and Waterstones web site.
{Information here}BOOK 14/52. PROMPT 50: SET IN THE 1940'S.Other Prompts It Might Have Been Used For ...Prompt 33: Standalone NovelPrompt 35: Written in the third personPrompt 41: Cover font is in a primary colourPrompt 47: 'I think it was blue'Prompt 51: 300 - 400 pages long
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