By Ann Bennett
A sweeping wartime tale of secrets and love, mystery and redemption, moving from the snow-capped Himalayas to the steamy heat of battle in the Burmese jungle.
Perfect for fans of Dinah Jeffries, Victoria Hislop and Rosie Thomas.
Hampshire, UK, 2015. When Chloe Harper’s beloved grandmother, Lena dies, a stranger hands her Lena’s wartime diary. Chloe sets out to uncover deep family secrets that Lena guarded to her grave.
Darjeeling, India, 1943, Lena Chatterjee leaves the confines of a strict boarding school to work as assistant to Lieutenant George Harper, an officer in the British Indian Army. She accompanies him to Nepal and deep into the Himalayas to recruit Gurkhas for the failing Burma Campaign. There, she discovers that Lieutenant Harper has a secret, which she vows never to reveal.
In Kathmandu, the prophesy of a mysterious fortune teller sets Lena on a dangerous course. She joins the Women’s Auxiliary Service Burma (the Wasbies), risking her life to follow the man she loves to the front line. What happens there changes the course of her life.
On her quest to uncover her grandmother’s hidden past, Chloe herself encounters mystery and romance. Helped by young Nepalese tour guide, Kiran Rai, she finds history repeating itself when she is swept up in events that spiral out of control... "A great read" Advance Reader. " Thank you so much for allowing me to read the advance copy. I could barely put it down!" Advance Reader, "What a wonderful book... I loved it. The dual time lines were delineated to perfection... the settings were perfectly rendered.." Advance Reader.
Publisher: Andaman Press
Page Length: 356
Genre: Historical Fiction / Historical Romance / Women’s adventure and romance
My books are always inspired by true historical events in particular little-known or obscure stories, and The Fortune Teller of Kathmandu is no exception. My first novel, Bamboo Heart: A Daughter’s Quest was inspired by researching my father’s experience as a prisoner of war of the Japanese enslaved on the Thai-Burma railway, and the research for that book led me to read more about the second world war in South-East Asia and to write several more books about that era in the region.
Having spent about six weeks in Nepal in 1987, staying in Pokhara and Kathmandu and trekking in the Annapurnas mountains, lodging with villagers, I fell in love with the beauty and mystery of that Kingdom. I have wanted to set a book there ever since I started writing historical fiction.
I've long been interested in the strong links between our countries, and in particular how and why young men from remote mountain villages in Nepal sign up to join the British army to fight for a foreign power. In addition, for the last twenty years, I’ve lived quite near Aldershot, the HQ of the British Army. Gurkhas and their families are a big presence in the area.
I was interested in how Gurkhas were recruited during the second world war (in which ….. served and around 10,000 lost their lives) and discovered that recruiting officers from the British Army would travel into the hills to recruit young men and that for some villagers, for whom life in the mountains was often a struggle, a son in the Gurkhas would be a lifeline.
I decided to have a British recruiting officer as one of my characters (Lieutenant George Harper) and my main character, Lena, to be his assistant. They travel together into the mountains to recruit for the Burma campaign in the early 1940s. My characters travel the same route that I followed with my schoolfriend in the late eighties and trekked again with my husband while I was writing the novel. I found that the landscape had changed very little in the intervening thirty-six years, but that trekking is now big business in some of the villages there now, farming appearing to take second place. Travelling there made me want to convey the beauty of the mountains and the timeless nature of life there for readers.
The Kumari Devi is just one of the many mythical and mysterious aspects of Nepal that inspired me to write this book. To encapsulate that mystery, I created the character of the fortune teller who reads the palms of both central characters in the book and whose prophesies sets Lena on a course that will change her life.
Ann Bennett is a British author of historical fiction. She was born in Pury End, a small village in Northamptonshire, UK and now lives in Surrey.
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. Bamboo Island: The Planter's Wife, A Daughter's Promise and Bamboo Road:The Homecoming, The Tea Panter's Club and The Amulet are also about the war in South East Asia, which together with The Fortune Teller of Kathmandu make up the Echoes of Empire Collection.
Ann is also author of The Runaway Sisters, bestselling The Orphan House, The Forgotten Children and The Child Without a Home, published by Bookouture.
The Lake Pavilion, The Lake Palace, both set in British India in the 1930s and WW2, and The Lake Pagoda and The Lake Villa, set in French Indochina during WW2, make up The Oriental Lake Collection.
Ann is married with three grown up sons and a granddaughter and works as a lawyer. For more details please visit www.annbennettauthor.com.
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Thank you for hosting Ann Bennett today, with such a fascinating post!
ReplyDeleteTake care,
Cathie xx
The Coffee Pot Book Club