EVA IS WAITING.

 

EVA IS WAITING by ROMOLA FARR.

Genre ... Mystery thriller woven with a golden thread of love, deceit and betrayal

Publication Date ... 1st April 2025

Estimated Page Count ... 346

Standalone Novel

Following the death of her mother, Lily is sent to a remote girls' boarding school, tearing her away from all the excitement of London in the Swingin’ Sixties. Bereft, she develops a relationship with Rainer, the husband of Sylvia, the headmistress.

One day, Bella, the school Collie, goes missing whilst playing on the shore below sheer cliffs. Despite a rising tide, Lily is determined to find the beautiful dog and discovers her trapped between rocks in a cave. Deepening water swirls around them as her fingertips dig into the sand and touch the smooth surface of what she believes to be an animal skull. From that moment on, she is haunted by a young girl pleading for help.
Lily speaks to her headmistress and learns that eleven years previously a pupil went missing. Eva was a refugee from Hungary, and it was assumed by the police that she had run away.

Forced to stay on at school during the Christmas holiday, Lily is caught between those who know what really happened and wish to silence her, and her determination to end Eva’s wait for justice.

But is history about to repeat itself?

A novel that will no doubt appeal equally to those readers who enjoy a story set in the 'near past' as well as those who enjoy a mystery that is just that bit different.
Beautifully depicted, a teenager on the verge of adulthood, remembering my younger self, I readily identified with main character, Lily, and the battle between the naïve, needy, almost childlike her and the emerging, mature young woman that was raging inside of her.
Set in the the 1960s, the ambience of the era; the music, the social climate, the differing attitudes of that time, the turning of a blind eye, the misuse of power all perfectly and frighteningly showcased.
Intrigued right up until the end, credit to the author in maintaining a palpable tension throughout a novel that I found to be powerful, raw and, at times, deeply harrowing.

Romola Farr first trod the boards on the West End stage aged sixteen and continued to work for the next eighteen years in theatre, TV and film - and as a photographic model. A trip to Hollywood led to the sale of her first screenplay and a successful change of direction as a screenwriter and playwright. Bridge To Eternity was her debut novel, and Breaking Through the Shadows and Where the Water Flows are standalone sequels. All are contemporary stories located in the fictional town of Hawksmead. Eva is Waiting is set in a remote girls’ boarding school in 1965. Romola Farr is a nom de plume.
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 and GoodReads.

READ FOR THE 52 BOOK CLUB'S 2025 READING CHALLENGE.

{Information here}BOOK 15/52. PROMPT 36: LAST SENTENCE IS SIX WORDS OR LESS.Other Prompts It Might Have Been Used For ...Prompt 21: Character's name in the titlePrompt 33: Standalone NovelPrompt 51: 300 - 400 pages longPrompt 52: Published in 2025.

Share the love by following their blog.
Take a few minutes to check out their newest post and leaving a comment, you’ll instantly put a smile on their face.
Share on FaceBook, X, Pinterest, and other social media sites, it shows that you care about their work and want others to enjoy it too!
The next time you see their post pop up on your feed, hit the like button, leave a comment, or even share it with your followers. It’ll defiantly make their day.

BAMBOO HEART: A DAUGHTER'S QUEST.

 

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

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.
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.

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, 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

https://www.facebook.com/annbennettauthorhttps://x.com/annbennett71https://www.instagram.com/annbennettauthor/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.

READ FOR THE 52 BOOK CLUB'S 2025 READING CHALLENGE.

{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

Share the love by following their blog.
Take a few minutes to check out their newest post and leaving a comment, you’ll instantly put a smile on their face.
Share on FaceBook, X, Pinterest, and other social media sites, it shows that you care about their work and want others to enjoy it too!
The next time you see their post pop up on your feed, hit the like button, leave a comment, or even share it with your followers. It’ll defiantly make their day.