The Lake Palace

From Ann Bennett, best-selling author of The Orphan House, comes The Lake Palace, an enchanting historical novel set in British India during the Burma Campaign in WWII.

Perfect for fans of Dinah Jefferies, Victoria Hislop, and The Kashmir Shawl by Rosie Thomas.

India, 1944: Iris Walker, daughter of a 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 traveling behind the front line of the 14th Army, where she sees the horrors of war firsthand and realizes 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 Lake Palace is the follow-up to The Lake Pavilion, although it can be listened to as a stand-alone book.