Becca McCulloch Reads and Writes: Promo - Bamboo Island: The Planters Wife

I am so excited to feature Ann Bennet, author of Bamboo Island: The Planter's Wife, as a guest writer for the blog. Thank you to Rachel's Random Resources for making this post happen! You can read my original review of the novel at: Bamboo Heart Review. Thank you, Ann, for joining us on your book birthday!

From award-winning author Ann Bennett comes a haunting and powerful novel of love and loss during World War 2 Malaya.

'A vivid account of a brutal period, and a searing exploration of trauma, memory and loss..' The Lady Magazine.

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.

This book has previously been published both as The Planter's Wife and as Bamboo Island

Praise for Bamboo Island: The Planter's Wife..

‘This was a story of love, passion and cruelty I could not put down … I needed to discover Juliet's secrets.’ Lizeanne Lloyd - Lost in a Good Book

‘I raced through this book in just over twenty-four hours … I literally could not put it down. I connected and sympathised with Juliet as a character so much… and I was constantly on edge whilst reading it, desperate to find out more about her past.’ Bibliobeth – Goodreads.

‘I really loved this haunting, powerful and beautiful novel.’ Amazon Reviewer

Inspiration for the novel by Ann Bennett

Bamboo Island: The Planter’s Wife, is the second standalone book I wrote about World War Two in Southeast Asia, the first being Bamboo Heart: A Daughter’s Quest. That book was inspired by researching my father’s wartime experience as a solider fighting in the Malaya campaign and as a prisoner of war of the Japanese on the Thai-Burma railway. As I researched the conflict in Southeast Asia for Bamboo Heart, I read many more stories of suffering and bravery, and discovered how the war impacted different people in different ways. Those stories inspired me to write more books set in the region during WW2, all of which are standalone and now form a collection called Echoes of Empire.

Bamboo Island: The Planter’s Wife is the story of a British woman, Juliet Crosby. She travels to Malaya (now Malaysia), in the 1930s with her sister after the death of their father, to stay with an aunt in Penang. Although they don’t intend to stay longer than a few months, they both marry and end up making their home there. Juliet marries Gavin Crosby, a wealthy rubber planter, but when she moves to his remote plantation, things there aren’t quite what she expected. Later, when the Japanese invade, her world is torn apart, and she finds herself alone and struggling to survive. She ends up in hiding in occupied Singapore, witnessing the cruelty of the Japanese towards the local community; the massacres of the Chinese population, the brutality, the starvation.

Years later, back on the plantation, a virtual recluse, still coming to terms with what happened during the war, the arrival of a mysterious stranger forces Juliet to confront the past.

As well as being inspired by researching my father’s experience and reading about ordinary British people caught up in the conflict, the story was also shaped by my own travels there and by books I had read set in the region. When I was a student, I picked up a battered, second-hand copy of a volume of short stories by William Somerset Maugham, many of which were set in far-flung places in the British empire. They depict vividly the lonely, claustrophobic lives of many British ex-pats who lived and worked there. Many were homesick, hankering after Britain, and clung fiercely onto their traditions and rituals, dressing for dinner and playing tennis and bridge at the club. Others took to their new home more easily, learning the language and adapting to the environment as if they’d always lived there. Somerset Maugham’s stories like The Letter, in which a British woman living on a lonely plantation is accused of murder, The Back of Beyond about an affair which tears lives apart and The Book Bag, another tragedy, this time concerning the close bond between a brother and sister, tell haunting stories of those times between the wars. They evoke a way of life which vanished when the sun set on the empire.

These stories inspired me to visit some of these places myself. In 1985 I took a trip from Bangkok to Bali, visiting Malaysia and Singapore enroute (including Penang, Kuala Lumpur and Melaka). I loved those places have visited several times since. It is now a modern, multi-cultural region, its cities full of modern, high-tech buildings, but in amongst them are streets bearing the hallmarks of the region’s past; streets of old Chinese shophouses, grand old hotels and gracious colonial villas. Those old buildings, some of which are preserved, others left to crumble, are a reminder of those very different times and of forgotten lives.

Purchase Link - https://mybook.to/bambooisland

Price Drop Alert!

From 19th - 27th April Bamboo Island: The Planter’s Wife will be at the bargain price of 0.99 p/c.

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 and The Amulet. Along with The Lotus House, published in October 2024, they make up the Echoes of Empire Collection. A further collection, Tales of Kathmandu, includes The Fortune Teller of Kathmandu and The Bookseller of Kathmandu, published in September 2025.

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.

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. The Stolen Sisters, published on 29th November 2024 is the follow-up to The Orphan List and is set in Poland and Germany during WWII. Her latest book, Once We Were Sisters was published in February 2026.

A former lawyer, Ann is married with three grown up sons and a granddaughter and lives in Surrey, UK. For more details, please visit her website www.annbennettauthor