She is twenty, restless in Delhi. He is a few years older and has travelled the world. They meet in a cafe and they fall in love. In a dark, cool flat they have sex and do drugs. And then they travel the city. From the drug dens of Paharganj to the building sites of Noida, through the wastelands of Mehrauli and the dargah in Nizamuddin charged with plaintive song, the two play out their love story to its black end.
A Bad Character is a novel about a young woman finding her sexuality and herself against the backdrop of a dangerous city. It is the great novel of Delhi, capturing its beauty, its history and its violence like no other recent novel and it is a vivid account of a young woman coming of age. Written with passionate, lyrical intensity, A Bad Character is a haunting and utterly memorable novel.
Catagory: Romance
A Bad Character
The Gospel of Yudas
Young and impressionable, Prema is deeply infatuated with Yudas, the enigmatic man who dredges corpses from the bottom of the nearby lake. Longing to be rescued from the tyranny of her father, a former policeman who zealously tortured Naxalite rebels during the Emergency, Prema dreams of escape and finds herself drawn to the Naxal political ideology. Convinced that Yudas was one of the inmates at her father’s prison camp, Prema believes that only he can save her. But Yudas is haunted by secrets of his own, and like his biblical namesake Judas Iscariot, he bears the burden of crushing guilt.
In her passionate pursuit of the mercurial Yudas, Prema is plunged into a world of terrifying truths and insidious lies. Ferociously powerful and utterly absorbing, The Gospel of Yudas raises alarmingly relevant questions about the politics of allegiance and the price of idealism. It is also a deeply human story about remorse, redemption and love.
Hedon
‘This was always going to happen.’
Tara Mullick falls in love with Jay Dhillon at first encounter. Her pull toward the older, brilliant billionaire is an unyielding force that carries her through Catholic school in Kolkata to four years of recklessness at college in the American Midwest. Things come to a head upon Tara’s return to India. She comes face-to-face with the socially oppressive realities of her world, and then, six years after their initial meeting-with Jay himself.
Edgy and compelling, Hedon is a stunning debut novel that explores the vagaries of love and heartache, and what it means to not know where you belong.
The Life And Times Of Layla The Ordinary
‘I am Layla the Ordinary. Doesn’t have the same ring to it as Alexander the Great, but then, some of us do have to be ordinary to make the specials stand out even more. Right? Right.’
Sift through the journal of Layla, whose overnight transformation from pedestrian to popular sends her world spinning into a riot of endless lists that range from:
1. Platonic (or, Laylanic) love to first kisses
2. BFF trouble to BF confusion
3. Fashion faux pas to ideal coffee dates
This rib-tickling and charming account of an average teenager’s life will have you hooked from the first page to the last.
Venus Crossing
In Venus Crossing, Kalpana Swaminathan masterfully crafts twelve stories that lay bare the deepest complexities of human relationships. These stories capture the instant of transit, that moment when the impossible-the unthinkable-is absorbed into the fabric of life so that life can be lived again. That moment is everything: revelation, challenge, existence. In the Yellow Dupatta, practical compulsions surmount grief as a young couple takes their dead child home from the hospital. A middle-aged nurse finds romance with the most obnoxious of patients in Sister Thomas and Mister Gomes. Two young women shattered by rejection begin the long journey of survival in Fly Away, Peter. Incident at Abu Ghraib finds Sukhi appalled by her mother’s empathy for a disgraced American soldier. Hemant is counselled, in Euthanasia, to opt for the final solution-but will he?
Incisive, brilliant and deeply compassionate, Venus Crossing showcases Kalpana Swaminathan’s consummate skill as a storyteller and proves, yet again, the uncompromising vision of her craft.
Noor
Ayesha is a twenty-something reporter in one of the world’s most dangerous cities. Her assignments range from showing up at bomb sites and picking her way through scattered body parts to interviewing her boss’s niece, the couture-cupcake designer. In between dicing with death and absurdity, Ayesha despairs over the likelihood of ever meeting a nice guy, someone like her old friend Saad, whose shoulder she cries on after every romantic misadventure. Her choices seem limited to narcissistic, adrenaline-chasing reporters who’ll do anything to get their next story—to the spoilt offspring of the Karachi elite who’ll do anything to cure their boredom. Her most pressing problem, however, is how to straighten her hair during the chronic power outages.
Karachi, You’re Killing Me! is Bridget Jones’s Diary meets The Diary of a Social Butterfly—a comedy of manners in a city with none.
Noor
Ayesha is a twenty-something reporter in Karachi, one of the world’s most dangerous cities. Her assignments range from showing up at bomb sites and picking her way through scattered body parts to interviewing her boss’s niece, the couture-cupcake designer. In between dicing with death and absurdity, Ayesha despairs over the likelihood of ever meeting a nice guy, someone like her old friend Saad, whose shoulder she cries on after every romantic misadventure. Her choices seem limited to narcissistic, adrenaline-chasing reporters who’ll do anything to get their next story-to the spoilt offspring of the Karachi elite who’ll do anything to cure their boredom. Her most pressing problem, however, is how to straighten her hair during the chronic power outages. This is Bridget Jones’s Diary meets The Diary of a Social Butterfly-a comedy of manners in a city with none.
Lovetorn
Dear sixteen-year-olds of the world . . .
. . . I’m in a crisis right now and need your help. So, I was engaged to the love of my life. You know how it is in small towns: you meet a nice boy, especially if he’s from a known family, and get fixed for life. You are waiting to be together and . . . Bam!
Your father finds his dream job and you’re forced to move with your family to the US. No questions asked.
It was quite awkward at first, my clothes, my hair, my accent . . . even my scent. I stood out friendless, weird.
But things didn’t stay the same for very long. I was suddenly drawn into a charity organization and then to the cutest and sweetest boy in the entire school!
Tell me, can you possibly be in love and out of love at the same time? Especially when the guy you are engaged to; is certain you’re coming back.
Waiting for your response,
Yours, Lovetorn
A Half-baked Love Story
Have you ever:
Fallen in love at first sight?
Gone to your first date with an empty wallet?
Been caught kissing your girl by her father?
Risked missing your IIT exam to meet her for the last time?
Aarav has.
Aarav is a rich brat who sleeps with every girl he is even mildly attracted to. He transforms from a shy teenager to an inconsiderate adult until an important realization hits him. Discover the pangs of his roller-coaster life as he reveals his deepest secrets.
Now a national bestseller, A Half-baked Love Story is the story of two very different individuals as they come to terms with the pangs and pleasures of first love while battling the situations that life has placed them in. Let the characters guide you through this beautiful tale of love, loss and longing.