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I am delighted to be bringing you an excerpt of this book, Bamboo Heart: A Daughter's Quest by Ann Bennett. It is the first in her Bamboo Heart Trilogy and it looks like fabulous historical fiction.
What's more is that there is a giveaway of one of the author's other books, The Lotus House, which you can enter by scrolling further down this post. Good luck!
The Blurb
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.
The Excerpt
These are the opening paragraphs of Chapter 1. Laura Ellis, a lawyer working in Paris, has been called home to London to see her ageing father, Tom who has had a fall…
Hurrying out of the tube station on to Highbury Corner, Laura shivered in the chill drizzle of the winter afternoon. She glanced at the darkening sky and pulled her coat tightly around her. Hovering on the edge of the pavement, she scanned the lanes of stationary traffic for a cab, but seeing none, stepped onto the road, and nimbly threaded her way through the cars.
Her ankle turned as her left heel snagged between two uneven paving stones, and she cursed her tight work skirt and high heels. A goods lorry splashed past with a hiss of air brakes, spattering her legs and the hem of her skirt with filthy water.
‘Bloody hell!’ Ducking her head against the rain, she carried on, past the assortment of dusty charity shops, ethnic grocers and empty cafés, towards St. Paul’s Road. Soon she was away from the heavy traffic, hurrying along the broad pavements of Highbury New Park in the grey-green light filtering through the plane trees
As she rounded the final sweep in the road, and the old house came into view, she quickened her pace. There it was, still stately despite its shabby paint work. In years gone by it had not looked out of place, but now it stooped apologetically between its two smarter, recently gentrified neighbours with their white windows and scrubbed brickwork.
Laura saw that someone was standing in front of the house. She slowed down, panting from the effort of running. It was an old man. Dressed in a battered hat and grey overcoat, he was almost indistinguishable from the tree under which he sheltered. He seemed to be watching the house. Laura hesitated, puzzled. Then, taking a deep breath to steady her thumping heart, she ventured a few steps towards him. He turned and began to move away from her, shuffling rather than walking.
‘Hey,’ she called out, but he didn’t turn.
She watched his retreating form for a second then shrugged. He was probably one of the tramps who slept rough around Finsbury Park Station and was straying from his normal patch.
She paused before lifting the latch to the front gate. How overgrown the garden was. The scent of damp grass conjured a memory of pottering around behind Dad as a toddler, watching him weed the flowerbeds and prune the honeysuckle that smothered the front wall. She glanced up at the house. The curtains on the second floor sagged across the windows. A few greying socks hung from a clothes horse on the balcony, soaking in the rain. Ken, the lodger, would be fast asleep in the studio, amongst his paint pallets and whisky bottles, where he had been staying since he turned up for a brief visit in the summer of 1962.
The windows of Dad’s study were shut today. Normally he would have them open to let out the smoke as he sat puffing away on roll-ups, reading or working at his desk.
She let herself in through the front door. She stood still for a second, taking in the atmosphere and silence of the old house, its familiar smells of tobacco and stale cooking.
Then she kicked off her shoes and threw her coat on the hall table. The door to the back sitting room was shut. She pressed her ear to the panel. There was no sound, so she opened the door. The curtains were closed and she had to pause to let her eyes adjust to the gloom. The room’s furniture had been shoved together to make space for Dad’s bed. His portable radio chattered softly from the corner of the room.
‘Laura?’
She crossed the room and knelt down beside her father.
‘Dad.’
He raised himself onto one elbow. His blue striped pyjamas sagged from his bony shoulders. A crepe bandage was wrapped around his forehead.
‘Come here. I wasn’t expecting to see you. I thought you were in Paris.’
He held out his arms. He was smiling, but his face was pale and drawn with pain. She leaned forward to hug him. She put her arms around him, but sensing the fragility of the bones in his arms and ribs was afraid to hug him too tightly.
‘Marge called me this morning,’ she said. ‘I came straight away.’
‘You shouldn’t have come all that way. What a fuss about nothing. What on earth did they say at work?’
‘Nothing much. They couldn’t object really, could they? Anyway, what happened to you?’
‘Fell down the damned steps to the library. That ridiculous sodding stick gave way. The rubber bottom had worn down so it slipped—’
He paused for a coughing fit.
‘Ruddy leg broken in two places. Not that it was up to much anyway. Banged my head too.’
‘I hope they dosed you up with painkillers.’
‘Of course. Morphine, codeine, the works. I’m rattling like a tube of Smarties.’
She straightened up and smiled down fondly at him.
‘I’ll tell you what then,’ he looked up at her craftily. ‘I could do with a beer.’
‘You sure? It’s a bit early.’
‘Nonsense. It’s nearly dark. There is some in the fridge in the study.’
She padded through to his study at the front of the house. Her feet were still wet from the walk.
‘Can I turn on the heating?’ she called. ‘It’s a bit bloody cold in here, Dad.’
‘Boiler’s broken down. I’ve been meaning to get it fixed.’
She stopped in the doorway to the study. Towering piles of books, newspapers and journals crowded every surface, the desk, the sideboard and even the floor. On the desk, ringed with coffee stains, were dirty cups and glasses, an ash tray overflowing with cigarette ends.
She was about to move away when she saw something poking out from between the pages of a book. It looked like a photograph.
She slipped it out and stared at it. A faded sepia portrait, battered and creased. One of its corners had been torn away. It was someone she’d never seen before. It was a young woman. Although her complexion was pale, she had oriental features: dark eyes the shape of almonds, slightly tilted at the edges, a full mouth, a sheen of black hair drawn back severely from her face. She had a serious, demure expression, betraying a trace of surprise at the flash of the camera bulb. Laura turned over the photograph. The ink was so faded it was almost colourless. It looked as though it had been in water, but she could just make out the words written neatly in flowing script: ‘To my dear Thomas. Good luck. Joy de Souza. Penang, November 1941.’
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