Ann Bennett - 12 Book Collecton
General Fiction - ePub 6 MB
The Foundling's Daughter
In 1934, Anne Foster, the wife of a British Army Officer, privately harbouring pain and remorse, sets sail from Bombay on a fateful journey home, a letter from a charismatic stranger — orphanage superintendent, Reverend Ezra Burroughs — in her pocket.
Seventy-six years later, Connie Burroughs, Ezra's daughter, now in her nineties and in a care home, still lives in fear of her dead father. She guards his secrets loyally, but with a lifetime of regrets.
Sarah Jennings, escaping an unhappy marriage, moves to be near her ageing father. She buys Cedar Lodge, the crumbling former home of the Burroughs family, a renovation project she hopes will bring peace of mind to trying times. But she's not prepared for the shocking secrets she uncovers. Determined to track down the past, Sarah embarks on a quest to expose the chilling events that took place at Ezra Burroughs' orphanage in the 1930s; a quest that will ultimately change her life.
A Daughter's Quest (Bamboo Trilogy)
Thailand, 1943: Thomas Ellis, captured by the Japanese at the fall of Singapore, is a prisoner-of-war on the Death Railway. In stifling heat he endures endless days of clearing jungle, breaking stone and lugging wood. He must stay alive, although he is struck down by disease and tortured by Japanese guards, and he must stay strong, although he is starving and exhausted. For Tom has 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. London, 1986: Laura Ellis, a successful City lawyer, turns her back on her yuppie existence and travels to Southeast Asia. In Thailand and Malaysia she retraces her father’s past and discovers the truth he has refused to tell her. And in the place where her father once suffered and survived, she will finally find out how he got his Bamboo Heart. A Daughter's Quest was previously published as Bamboo Heart, and continues to be published in South East Asia in paperback under that title.
The Planter's Wife (Bamboo Trilogy)
A vivid account of a brutal period, and a searing exploration of trauma, memory and loss .
1938:
Juliet and her sister Rose arrive in Penang to stay with an aunt, after the death of their father.
Juliet quickly falls under the spell of Gavin Crosby, a plantation owner, who despite his wealth, charm and good looks is shunned by the local community.
Rushed into marriage, Juliet is unprepared for the devastating secrets she uncovers on Gavin’s plantation, and the bad blood between Gavin and his brother . . . .
But in 1941 the Japanese occupy Malaya and Singapore sweeping away that world and changing Juliet’s life forever.
For decades after the war which robbed her of everyone she loved, Juliet lives as a recluse back on the plantation.
But in 1962 the sudden appearance of Mary, a young woman from an orphanage in Indonesia, forces Juliet to embark on a journey into the past, and to face up to the heart-breaking truths she’s buried for so long
The Amulet
After her mother’s death, Lara discovers a beautiful amulet amongst her belongings, engraved with the words “for Suria.” Suspecting Suria to be the grandmother she never met, Lara travels to Singapore to find out why her mother was committed to the care of a local orphanage during World War Two. In 1941, Suria, a poor Malay girl working in a tailor’s shop and living in a communal warehouse, is befriended by a British officer, Charles Simmonds. They start to grow close, but war threatens to engulf Singapore and tear them apart. While delving into her grandmother’s past, Lara is forced to confront betrayal and brutality as she learns some disturbing truths about families and friendships…
The Tea Planter's Club - In 1980, Edith Mayhew, proprietor of the Tea Planter’s Club in Calcutta, is preparing to sell up after years of decline. She thinks back to 1942 when her sister Betty vanished having fled over the mountains from Burma to Assam to escape the Japanese invasion. Whilst packing, Edith comes across some letters which may hold clues to Betty’s mysterious disappearance.
The discovery propels Edith on an epic journey to Assam, where she is forced to face devastating secrets of love and betrayal from the war years.
The Lake Pavilion - India 1935: Amelia Collins, a missionary’s daughter, left destitute by the death of her parents, leaves their home in the Himalayan foothills to find work in Darjeeling. There she meets District Officer Reginald Holden, a powerful older man, who spirits her away from poverty and prejudice to start a new life as his wife in Ganpur.
Amelia soon forms a bond with Reginald’s young son, Arthur, and resumes missionary work in the villages around Ganpur. There, she discovers a pavilion on a lake where the wives of maharajahs once bathed, now abandoned and cloaked in mystery.
When the Indian independence movement flares in Ganpur and Reginald struggles to contain it, Amelia's world begins to fall apart as she uncovers the shattering truths he has been keeping from her.
Decades later, when Kate Hamilton inherits a rambling country house from her great aunt Amelia, she returns to the village in Buckinghamshire that she left as a teenager in 1944. Sorting through long-hidden papers, she begins to unearth Amelia’s secrets from her years in British India.
But Kate is harbouring a secret of her own – a devastating betrayal from that last summer of the war. She has lived in the shadow of that day ever since, but Kate is convinced that unlocking the truth about Amelia’s Indian past will hold the key to her own future…
The Lake Palace
India,1944: Iris Walker, daughter of the British Political Agent in the princely state of Ranipur, is a volunteer nurse, caring for soldiers wounded fighting the Japanese on the border with Burma. One evening the maharajah invites Iris and her parents to a dinner at the Lake Palace, where she meets the enigmatic Edward Stark, a friend of the prince. Edward is dashing, kind and considerate, and the attraction is instantly mutual.
But Edward is en route to a special mission in the Naga Hills, meaning they have only days together before Iris is once again left alone. To distract herself from longing for Edward, Iris volunteers to work in a mobile hospital unit travelling behind the front line of the 14th Army where she sees the horrors of war first hand and realises how precious and precarious life can be.
In 1985, Iris, newly widowed, returns to India on holiday. A visit to the now neglected Lake Palace, brings back bitter memories from the 1940s that Iris cannot now let rest. She embarks on a journey into the Naga Hills to uncover long-buried truths from the war years.
The Runaway Sisters (2020)
The story of two sisters fighting to survive in the darkest days of World War Two.
A heartbreaking tale of resilience and bravery, about having the courage to sacrifice yourself in order to save the ones you love . . .
Devon, present day: Helen Cavendish’s relationship with her mother has always been strained.
Her mother is quiet and stoic, with no other family to speak of, but as Helen goes through her mother’s possessions, packing her up to move her to a care home, she finds photographs of two little evacuee girls that will change everything she thought she knew . . . .
1940: When fifteen-year-old Daisy is evacuated from her home in London, she knows she must look after her younger sister Peggy. She is the only one who can reassure Peggy that life will go back to normal, holding her close and reading to her from their one battered children’s book.
But when the sisters are taken into the countryside, Daisy quickly realises that not everyone at home is on the right side of the war. Forced to work in fields alongside orphan children, she finds herself drawn to a young boy called John, who has tried and failed to escape many times before. He protects the other children, and his bravery inspires Daisy.
Then Peggy gets sick and Daisy knows that, to save her life, they must run away.
As the sounds of German engines grow louder above her, Daisy is faced with an impossible choice - escape with just her sister, or risk her life to save others?
It’s a choice that is destined to affect her family for generations . . .
The Orphan House (2018)
As she looks at the baby wriggling in her father’s arms, a bolt of recognition goes through her and she takes a step back.
And it’s in that moment that she begins to protect her father’s secrets.
1934, Weirfield-on-Thames.
Connie Burroughs loves living in the orphanage that her father runs.
Exploring its nooks and crannies with her sister, hearing the pounding of a hundred pairs of feet on the wooden stairs, having a father who is doing so much good.
But everything changes the day she sees him carrying a newborn baby that he says he found near the broken front gate.
A baby she recognises . . . .
Present day.
Arriving at her father’s beloved cottage beside the river, Sarah Jennings is hoping for peace and quiet, to escape her difficult divorce.
But when she finds her father unwell and hunched over boxes of files on the orphanage where he was abandoned as a child, she decides to investigate it herself.
The only person left alive who lived at Cedar Hall is Connie Burroughs, but Connie sits quietly in her nursing home for a reason.
The sewing box under Connie’s bed hides secrets that will change Sarah’s life forever, uncovering a connection between them that has darker consequences than she could ever imagine.
A Daughter's Promise
Ninety-year old Grace has lived a long life, a life filled with memories of marriage to Jack… a man whose world had been torn apart by war. She receives a sketch of a beautiful Indian woman made by her husband. Who is she?
Twenty-seven years ago, her daughter, Louise, made a promise to Jack on his death-bed, a promise which took her to Burma where she became caught up in events with tragic consequences.
Today, Louise and her daughter, Eve, are retracing Louise’s steps to Myanmar, to search for the girl in Jack's sketch. But they are unprepared for the long-buried secrets their journey will unearth...
The Child Without a Home (2022)
1944, East Prussia.
When the war comes to twelve-year-old Agnes’ village, she finds herself stuck between two terrifying armies. Everyone in her town has been forced to fight for the Nazis, and as the Red Army approaches every innocent woman and child is made to leave their home.
Then tragedy strikes and Agnes and her brother Dieter find themselves completely alone in a vast, isolated woodland.
Though she is terrified, Agnes knows that she must protect her brother, no matter the cost . . .
Cambridge, present day.
When her beloved grandfather dies, Freya is distraught.
Not only has she lost the man who helped raise her, but she knows the story of his time as a pilot in World War Two, and her family’s history, is gone forever.
But then Freya meets her new next-door neighbour Agnes, whose accent is just like her grandfather’s.
She has a framed picture of a snow-covered castle that looks strangely familiar, and a weather-beaten image of a little blonde boy in braces and boots.
Agnes vowed never to tell the painful story of the young boy who risked everything for her, even if Freya believes Agnes may hold the key to unlocking her own family’s secrets.
But what Freya doesn’t realise is that Agnes’ past has the power to change everything she ever thought she knew about her family . . . .
The Lake Pagoda (2022)
French Indochina 1945: Arielle, the daughter of a French father and Vietnamese mother, is working for the colonial government. Because of her native blood, she’s spared imprisonment when the Japanese storm Hanoi. Forced to work for the enemy, Arielle is contacted by a Viet Minh agent, who threatens to expose her dark secrets from ten years before if she doesn’t help his cause.
As Arielle is drawn deeper into the rebels’ dangerous world, will she ever escape the torment of her past? Or will she find love in the most unexpected of places?
A novel of love, loss, and survival against all odds.
The Forgotten Children by Ann Bennett
Berlin, 1938. The sound of screaming and shattered glass hurts my ears as the Nazis storm the streets outside our home. I risk a glance at my twin sister, Ruth, as we hide together under the bed. I can see the fear on my face mirrored in her identical one. We are Jewish, and we know what will happen if they find us…
Even though we escape, our beloved mother and father disappear. Did the men in uniforms take them away? Ruth cries and I try to dry her tears but I am crying too. We are only eleven and we are all alone. But we promise to stay together forever.
Finally arriving at the gates of an orphanage, clutching each other’s hands tight, we think we must be safe. So long as no one discovers who we really are…
Fifty years later. I hold the faded photograph with shaking hands and gaze at Ruth’s laughing face: her full cheeks, her dark eyes sparkling. Now, my own face is lined and my eyes are tired. Would she even still recognise me? And when my daughter asks what happened in the war, could finally sharing my own terrible secrets help me find Ruth again, somehow?
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