Limited edition novella released for free:

Jungle Heart by lawyer Ann Bennett

Author of WW2 series, shortlisted for Best Fiction title in the 2016 Singapore Book Awards, releases limited edition story for fans of the Bamboo Trilogy

London, United Kingdom: Surrey-based author Ann Bennett releases a limited edition novella free of charge in honour of her shortlisting in the 2016 Singapore Book Awards. It has already shot to the number one spot on Amazon (Historical Fiction > Japanese and number eight in Historical Fiction > Short Stories).

The new short story, Jungle Heart, fills a gap before the release of the third book in the Bamboo Trilogy. Ann Bennett is the author behind a stunning series of WW2 fiction that was signed by publisher, Monsoon Books, as part of a three-book deal, and has recently attracted an audio rights deal for the first novel, Bamboo Heart.

Bamboo Island, the second in the trilogy launched in March 2016 and the final book is due for release in 2017. However, with such attention being given to the series in the UK as well as Asia, Mum of three, Ann Bennett, has released the limited edition short story: Jungle Heart.

Ann's stories are inspired by her discoveries regarding her own father's experience as a prisoner of war in Singapore during WW2. Jungle Heart, a short story that was originally intended for inclusion with Bamboo Heart, is written in Ann's inimitable and vivid style.

"Tom lay awake for hours watching the stars twinkling above in the clear sky, thinking about the next day when once again he would be fighting against the Japanese. Would it make up for all he had suffered? If he killed a single Japanese soldier, would it be payment for the years of starvation and slavery he had suffered at their hands?"

The visceral story follows Tom as he finds himself washed up on an unrecognisable beach after the ship he was being transported on, by his Japanese captors, is sunk. Disorientation and panic are quickly replaced by the steely resolve his time as a soldier taught him. The short story sees him thrust back into the battle but how much of the soldier has been wiped out by his POW experience?

The second book in the series, Bamboo Island, returns to East Asia but this time to a plantation to follow the life of Juliet, owner of a Malayan rubber plantation as she is forced to recollect the ordeals of wartime in Japanese-occupied Singapore.

Review

Bamboo Island was awarded 4/5 stars by The Lady magazine (April 2016):

"This is the second book in Bennett's Bamboo Trilogy. In 1960s Malaya, reclusive plantation owner Juliet is forced to revisit her wartime past when a young Indonesian woman appears at her remote estate. Their meeting shakes Juliet from her safe but lonely existence and forces her to revisit her pre-war marriage, the Japanese occupation, her imprisonment at Changi and the loss of her loved ones. This is a vivid account of a brutal period and a searing exploration of trauma, memory and loss."

About Ann Bennett

Born in a small village in Northamptonshire, the youngest of six girls, Ann Bennett lived in the same village until she was eighteen and left for school at Northampton High School for Girls before she read Law at Girton College, Cambridge and the College of Law in London, qualified and practised as a solicitor.

Ann worked in the city until she got married in 1990 and started to work in Legal Aid firms until her first son was born in 1992. Ann has written passionately all her life and has finished numerous short stories and three full-length novels that have never seen the light of day. In 2011 she became a keen contributor to YouWriteOn (a peer review site for writers) and receiving feedback from other writers helped her finish The Pomelo Tree, the book that eventually became Bamboo Heart. Ann's father inspired her interest in South East Asia during WWII. He had been a prisoner of war on the Thailand Burma Railway, and the idea for Bamboo Heart and a Southeast Asian WWII trilogy came from researching his wartime experiences and retracing his steps. The research took Ann to Asia, and she has returned to many times since on her own and with her family. She now lives in Farnham, Surrey with her husband and three sons. She works in London as a lawyer.

Notes to editors

Copies of Bamboo Heart and Bamboo Island are available upon request. PDF/epub files of Jungle Heart also available. Author Ann Bennett is available for interviews and editorial commissions about the inspiration behind her stories and her success as a new author:info@literallypr.com.