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A Harvest of Thorns

A Harvest of Thorns
  • Author(s): Corban Addison
  • Location(s): Bangladesh, Dhaka, Malaysia (Malaya), Virginia, Washington DC
  • Era(s): Modern

A beloved American corporation with an explosive secret. A disgraced former journalist looking for redemption. A corporate executive with nothing left to lose. In Dhaka, Bangladesh, a garment factory burns to the ground, claiming the lives of hundreds of...

The House of Doors

The House of Doors
  • Author(s): Tan Twan Eng
  • Location(s): Malaysia (Malaya), Penang
  • Genre(s): Fiction, Historical
  • Era(s): Early 20th Century

It is 1921 and at Cassowary House in the Straits Settlements of Penang, Robert Hamlyn is a well-to-do lawyer and his steely wife Lesley a society hostess. Their lives are invigorated when Willie, an old friend of Robert’s, comes...

The Night Tiger

The Night Tiger
  • Author(s): Yangsze Choo
  • Location(s): Malaysia (Malaya)
  • Genre(s): Fiction
  • Era(s): 1930s

In 1930s colonial Malaya, a dissolute British doctor receives a surprise gift of an eleven-year-old Chinese houseboy. Sent as a bequest from an old friend, young Ren has a mission: to find his dead master’s severed finger and reunite...

Bamboo Heart

Bamboo Heart
  • Author(s): Ann Bennett
  • Location(s): London, Penang, Singapore, Thailand
  • Genre(s): Fiction
  • Era(s): 1930s/40s and 1980s

The First in the Bamboo Trilogy. Thailand, 1943: Thomas Ellis, captured by the Japanese at the fall of Singapore, is a prisoner-of-war on the Death Railway. In stifling heat he endures endless days of clearing jungle, breaking stone and...

The Separation

The Separation
  • Author(s): Dinah Jefferies
  • Location(s): Malaysia (Malaya)
  • Genre(s): Fiction
  • Era(s): 1950s

A country at war with itself, a family divided and betrayed, a bond that can never be broken… Malaya, 1955. Lydia Cartwright returns from visiting a sick friend to an empty house. The servants are gone. The phone is dead. Where...

A Town Like Alice

A Town Like Alice
  • Author(s): Nevil Shute
  • Location(s): Australia, Malaysia (Malaya)
  • Genre(s): Mystery
  • Era(s): 1940s

Bellies

Bellies
  • Author(s): Nicola Dinan
  • Location(s): Cologne (Köln), Kuala Lumpur, London, New York City (NYC)
  • Genre(s): Coming of Age, Fiction, LGBTQIA+
  • Era(s): Contemporary

It begins as your typical boy meets boy. Tom and Ming meet on a night out at university and fall hard for each other. It’s not long before they are planning a future and building a life. Then Ming...

Bethnal Green

Bethnal Green
  • Author(s): Amélie Skoda
  • Location(s): Bethnal Green, London, Penang
  • Genre(s): Fiction
  • Era(s): 1970s

Penang, 1971. When Suyin is offered the opportunity of a lifetime – a place as a trainee nurse in London’s Bethnal Green hospital – she jumps at the chance to leave her job as a seamstress and unite with...

Circumstance

Circumstance
  • Author(s): Rosie Milne
  • Location(s): Malaysia (Malaya)
  • Genre(s): Fiction, Historical
  • Era(s): 1920s

What happens when an adoring young bride is met on the doorstep of her new home by her husband s former mistress? Frank, Rose and Nony are about to find out. It is 1924 and the British rule Malaya....

Fragile Monsters

Fragile Monsters
  • Author(s): Catherine Menon
  • Location(s): Malaysia (Malaya)
  • Genre(s): Fiction
  • Era(s): 1920 to present

Mary is a difficult grandmother for Durga to love. She is sharp-tongued and ferocious, with more demons than there are lines on her palms. When Durga visits her in rural Malaysia, she only wants to endure Mary, and the...

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