The Bride Test is the romance we all know we needed-with an incredibly representative diversity, an ambitious, generous heroine and a swoon-worthy hero!

Read on to find out more about what makes this romance so fabulously unique!

1. It’s sensitive exploration of different aspects of the autism spectrum

Khai Diep, while wealthy, successful and driven is autistic. This has affected the way he processes emotions and has caused him to be completely convinced that he is simply incapable of loving. Add to this his antipathy towards light, gentle touch of any kind and his struggles with intimacy and you can see how difficult it’s going to be to convince Esme (and himself) that he really is in love!

“The impression of her touch remained on his skin, shimmery and unpleasant and he knew from experience the sensation wouldn’t fade for another day. Light touches did that and it was worse when people caught him surprise.”

2.  It opens up a discussion on the struggles of cultural assimilation among immigrants

The Bride Test provides a fascinating insight into a cross-generational, cross section of Vietnamese immigrants, who have set up established vibrant, close-knit societies and successful businesses after immense struggle.

“Her grandma hugged her briefly, an extraordinary display of affection since older generations didn’t generally  hug and Esme caught the smell of more fish sauce. Instead of venting out the room she breathed the smell deep into her lungs, Her origins didn’t define her but they were a part of her. She refused to be ashamed of them.”

3. It’s a clever play on the mail order bride trope

The ‘mail order bride trope’ is popular in the world of romance with the adventure inherent in travelling across the world to make a better life for oneself with a mysterious stranger! And The Bride Test offers an incredibly fun twist on this, this is present-day USA and the not the Wild West and the unsuspecting hero has no idea what his mother has set him up for!

” ‘I’m not getting married, and she’s not staying here, and you can’t do things like this.’ This was the twenty-first century for fuck’s sake. People didn’t run around purchasing wives for their sons anymore.”

4. It shows an inherent respect for ambitious women

In a world that is far too critical of women with ambitious, aspirational  women, Esme is a heroine to look upto. She is unabashed about the fact that she wants a better life for herself and her daughter and mother, and is willing to work for it despite all odds.

“She would fight for herself and she would fight for her loved ones. And she would fight for her loved ones. Because she mattered. The fire inside of her mattered. It could achieve and accomplish. People might look down on her but she was making her way with as much integrity as she could with limited options.”

5. It consciously follows a heroine who is not necessarily ‘Westernized’ and has different cultural and social norms.

My Ngoc Tran, known briefly as Esme,  has never been to college and cleans toilets for a living back in Vietnam to support her daughter as a single mother. Her English is not fluent and she feels the need to lie about her being an accountant to disguise what she feels are her ‘shortcomings’ in an Anglocentric and West-centric world. Her character comes as a refreshing departure in a world where a really ‘feisty’ heroine is supposed be ‘Westernized’ inspite of her ethnicity. Esme shows that you can be feisty, ambitious and have a strong work ethic even while coming struggling with the trappings of the Western world.

I asked myself why I’d automatically decided my heroine had to be ‘Westernized’. Why couldn’t she have an accent, have less education, and be culturally awkward- Authors Note

6. It has an amazingly colourful cast of supporting characters!

From Khai’s outspoken, interfering but loveable mother , Cô Nga, to his whacky but supportive brothers and his wide range of cousins and sundry aunts, to Esme’s friends at the literacy centre and her adorable daughter Jade, the supporting characters are protagonists in their own right!

” ‘These two kids.’ Cô Nga tried to sound stern, but she couldn’t keep a smile off her face. ‘Go home already. People will see you.’ She dug through her granddaddy-sized purse until she came up with a tissue and handed it to Esme. Then she dragged the aunts off.”

7. It’s a Cinderella story with a twist!

While everybody loves the gentle, romantic sweetness of a Cinderella story, with its pathos and happy ending and the idea of a gorgeous man just willing to share your troubles, we’d like the heroine to show some spine and willingness to fight her own battles too. And The Bride Test just does that. While Esme is initially placed in a dependent situation, she shows a determination to work her way out of that, to become financially independent-whether it’s by working as a waitress to pay her way or not marrying till she graduates college

“In this country of empowered people, justice and fairness opportunities were there for everyone. Marriage and birth couldn’t be the only ways to belong here. She didn’t believe that. There had to be something she could do to earn her place here, some way to prove herself.”

The Bride Test  is available now!

Gulshan Grover’s autobiography Bad Man, co-authored by Roshmila Bhattacharya traces the tale of the actor and his rise to fame. From a child living under humble conditions to being known as the ‘Bad Man’ in his career-defining role in Ram Lakhan, the book talks about how he braved through many troubles as a struggling actor and his subsequent success. He shares about why he made an intentional decision to play the role of villain amidst a time when every other struggling actor wanted to play the hero and many other experiences which made a popular villain.

Here are a few things about this ‘Bad Man’ that you might find interesting!

Gulshan Grover’s very first acting job was his role as one of the monkeys in the army of the Hindu god Hanuman, in a local production of Ramayana. He was only five years old.

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Gulshan Grover is the first Indian actor to have ever acted in a Polish, Malaysian and an Iranian film.

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When in the ninth standard, Gulshan Grover used to sell detergents and disinfectants door-to-door, in order to provide financial help to his family.

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Gulshan Grover was a sincere and intelligent student at school, and due to this, he bagged an admission at the prestigious Shri Ram College of Commerce in the year 1971.

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Gulshan Grover’s first attempt at trying his luck in the films industry was a disappointing endeavour and he decided to go back home after a brief stint of three months in Mumbai. However, he motivated himself to go back with a calculated strategy and succeeded in becoming the Bad Man of Bollywood.

Read more such interesting accounts about making of the superstar Gulshan Grover in Bad Man

Thomas Taylor creates a wonderful and mythical environment in his book Malamander. Herbert Lemon, the Lost-and-Founder at The Grand Nautilus Hotel, comes across a girl who is lost. In the true spirit of his title, he takes it upon himself to unravel the mystery behind Violet Parma’s missing parents. What seems to take a path down to the famous wreck of the battleship Leviathan, leads the two to discover that their disappearance might have something to do with the legendary sea-monster, the Malamander. The story of Malamander is a beautifully created mystery – dotted with secrets, stories and an unforgettable sea-side town.

1. The Grand Nautilus Hotel has undiscovered secrets. There’s a lot happening inside its walls and a lot of mysteries to solve. It’ll guide you to the truth behind the town’s famous folklore – the Malamander.

The Grand Nautilus Hotel is a strange place. In high season, it’s full of summer guests – people in shorts and shades and sunburns who drift about looking at everything and noticing nothing. But it’s not like that in the winter. In the winter, people only stay here if they have a good reason. Or a bad one.

2. There’s a library you’ll want to see. It’s full of the secrets that the mermonkey carries with him. Find out which book he has in store for you. It can tell you a lot about your future or your past.

“The world’s one and only book dispensary,” Mrs Hanniver says, handing the card back. “A library will lend you the book you want, while a bookshop sells it for a price. In this place, however, it’s the book that chooses you.”

3. There’s seemingly nothing yet everything beyond the mist covering the  pier. 

Lady Kraken can see a lot with that cameraluna of hers, but seeing isn’t necessarily understanding.

4. The Malamander is a mythical creature that has become a big part of the town’s history. Nobody really knows much about it and nobody has really seen it. Or have they?

Something is in the mist, in the direction of the sea, too far to be clear. It’s a crouching figure, hunched low near the water, as if poised, waiting to spring. But there’s something funny about it, something odd about the length of its arms, something fish-like and spiny that stops this being a someone at all, and makes it more like a something.

5. Is there a part of you that wants something really desperately? Enough to take big risks in order to fulfil your wish? Then there might be something that the Malamander has that could make your wishes come true.

“And if you had such a thing in your possession, Violet Parma,” Eels continues. “If you could wish for your heart’s desire, I wonder what you would choose.”

Malamander by Thomas Taylor, published by Walker Books Ltd is available now.

What can best illustrate India’s journey in the last seven decades? Disruptions.

Almost every decade of India’s history since Independence has been marked by major disruptions.

The Rise of Goliath is the story of twelve disruptions that changed India. The book also provides a peek into the kind of disruptions India could face in the coming years.

Intrigued? Read an excerpt from the book below:

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For three separate reasons, not entirely unconnected with each other, 12 June 1975 was an important day for Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. Early in the morning, she received the news that D.P. Dhar, her adviser and trusted lieutenant for years, had died of a massive heart attack. Dhar at that time was India’s ambassador to the Soviet Union. He had just been sent to Moscow for his second stint after he served the Gandhi government in different capacities including as a minister. He played a key role in India’s war with Pakistan that led to the secession of East Pakistan, which eventually led to the creation of Bangladesh. He also played a crucial role in the formulation of India’s friendship treaties with both Bangladesh and the Soviet Union.

By the evening, the same day, news about a Congress debacle began trickling in from Gujarat, where the Assembly elections had been held earlier and the results were due that day. The Janata Morcha, a coalition of political parties, led by Jayaprakash Narayan, an Opposition leader, and Morarji Desai, who was then the leader of the Congress (O), was ahead of the Indira Gandhi-led Congress. A defeat for her party in the state looked certain and that would be a big setback not only for the party but also for Indira Gandhi personally, as she had led the entire Congress campaign in the Gujarat Assembly elections.

Between these two developments—one in the morning and other in the evening, another piece of news had broken around 10 a.m. The Allahabad High Court passed an order that unseated Indira Gandhi as a member of Parliament. The high court judge, Justice Jagmohan Lal Sinha, held her guilty of having used the services of a government servant and securing the help of some Uttar Pradesh government officers for campaigns during her Lok Sabha elections in 1971.

Even as Gandhi was scanning Justice Sinha’s judgment that day, she could not have missed the deep irony behind the direct or indirect involvement of his close adviser for many years in developments that led to her conviction. Parmeshwar Narayan Haksar was a diplomat who worked with Gandhi for almost six years—first as secretary, then as her principal secretary, and then was hired by her to be the deputy chairman of the Planning Commission for almost two years. On 13 January 1971, Yashpal Kapoor met Haksar, who was then her principal secretary, with a request that he be relieved immediately so that he could work for Gandhi’s election campaign. Haksar apparently accepted the resignation orally and Kapoor began campaigning for Gandhi, even though the official order accepting his resignation was issued only on 25 January 1971.

However, this version was contested by others, who believed that the resignation letter was backdated and there was a technical violation in the election code that a government servant cannot work for the election campaign of a candidate. Her joint secretary in the prime minister’s secretariat then, Bishan Narain Tandon, wrote in his diary:

The truth is that Kapoor had submitted his resignation only on

25 January but he had backdated it to 13 January. Action was taken on it

on the 25th. The official noting makes it clear that there was nothing to

suggest that its acceptance had been mooted before the 25th. The noting

is followed by the signatures of two officials and then by Haksar’s. He

accepted the noting and if the resignation had been accepted on the 13–

14th, he would have written so on the file. But he wrote no such thing

and signed the file. Later Seshan (private secretary to Gandhi) conveyed

the PM’s approval. In the light of these notings and signatures, there

can be no doubt left in anyone’s mind that Kapoor’s resignation had not

been accepted before the 25th.

Justice Sinha of the Allahabad High Court also believed that Gandhi was guilty of having obtained the services of a government servant for her election campaign work and cited that as one of the reasons for declaring her election in 1971 void. Haksar was also summoned by Justice Sinha and his answers in the court on 12 February 1975 could not change the judge’s view on the matter. Jairam Ramesh cites this instance in his book Intertwined Lives: P.N. Haksar and Indira Gandhi and also notes a deeper irony behind the development. It was Haksar again who in February 1972 had advised Gandhi to clear the appointment of Justice Sinha as a permanent judge in Allahabad High Court. Three years later, the same judge would deliver a verdict that would nullify Gandhi’s elections.

Four elements in the Allahabad High Court judgment stood out starkly: One, the election of Indira Gandhi had been declared void. Two, Gandhi was disqualified from seeking re-election for a period of six years. Three, the high court order did not take immediate effect and had been stayed for twenty days. This was because immediately after the high court judgment, Gandhi’s counsel had sought time for appeal and a twenty-day grace period was granted before the order could take effect so that she could file an appeal. Four, on the expiry of the twenty-day period or as soon as an appeal against the high court order was filed in the Supreme Court and admitted, the order on declaring Gandhi’s election void would cease to be effective. Technically, therefore, Gandhi could have simply gone in for an appeal and stayed on as the prime minister and hoped that the apex court would rule in her favour, which is what broadly happened later. But not before Gandhi took the pre-emptive and unprecedented action of declaring an internal emergency in the country on the night of 25 June 1975.

What other disruptions took place in India? Find out in The Rise of Goliath 

Kuldip Singh Dhingra, the patriarch of the Dhingra family and the man credited with building Berger Paints, has remained a mystery. He is low-profile, eschews media and continues to operate from a small office in Delhi. In Unstoppable by Sonu Bhasin, a candid and captivating biography, Kuldip reveals his story for the first time.

Read to know a few facts about this dynamic man:

1. Through Enid Blyton’s books, Kuldip would take his brother and sister to faraway lands of wishing trees, enchanted forests and the adventures of Noddy and his friends. The siblings would look forward to the stories.

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2.     Sixteen-year-old Kuldip had decided that he wanted to study further before coming to sit at the shop. ‘I thought chemical engineering karoonga, paints da business hai – kaam aa jaayegi [I thought I would study chemical engineering, we have a paints business – it will be useful],’ he said.

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3.     Kuldip went to Chandigarh in the summer of 1964 armed with his mark sheets and sports certificates. He had trophies and certificates for athletics, high jump, shot put and table tennis. Government College Chandigarh immediately gave him admission to his preferred course, Bsc honours in chemistry.

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4.     Kuldip has a temper but he also has compassion. ‘People tell me that I am like a volcano. After the lava gushes out, there is calm,’ he said.

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5.     Kuldip was a man who looked at the facts and took a decision fast. He processed all his thoughts and came to the conclusion that three months in the life of the business would not mean much and that seeing the world would only widen his perspective.

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6.     Kuldip was spending time between the shop, travelling along with Ajit Singh for his hands-on sales training and going to the factory sporadically. The job he liked the most, however, was sitting at his Hall Bazaar shop because he enjoyed dealing with customers.

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7.     Kuldip’s enthusiasm was infectious. The market loved him. ‘People used to say “maal kahan bikta hai? Yeh to personality bikti hai ji [Kuldip sells his personality, not his material], laughed Kuldip. His forceful and friendly personality created almost instant bonds with the trade.

Want to know more about this man? Unstoppable is available now!

Did you know? In the year 1997 when the United Nations named Winnie the Pooh as World’s Ambassador of Friendship. And did you know, that the Beatles released their popular song “With a Little Help from My Friends” in 1967 to mark the 10th-anniversary celebrations of International Friendship Day?

We celebrate this day with books! Would you like to gift your BFF a book from this curated list of must-reads?

In Diary of an Awesome Friendly Kid, Rowley Jefferson writes about his experiences and agrees to play the role of biographer for Greg along the way. (After all, one day Greg will be rich and famous, and everyone will want to know his life’s story.) But Rowley is a poor choice for the job, and his “biography” of Greg is a hilarious mess. Diary of an Awesome Friendly Kid: Rowley Jefferson’s Journal offers readers a new way to look at the Wimpy world—one fans won’t want to miss!

The Rabbit and the Squirrel 

A heartbreaking modern fable from a writer acutely alert to the dark surprises of the human heart. The Squirrel’s greatest joy is dancing in the forest with the Rabbit–her beloved friend and equal of heart. While the duo is inseparable, fate has other ideas: the feisty Squirrel is forcibly married to a wealthy boar and the solitary Rabbit enlists in a monastery. Years later, a brief, tragic reunion finds them both transformed by personal defeats. And yet, to each other, they are unchanged, and their private world—where sorrow registered as rapture and wit concealed loss—is just how they had left it. A story of thwarted love, and an ode to the enduring pleasures of friendship, The Rabbit and the Squirrel is a charmed fable for grown-ups, in which one life, against all odds, is fated for the other.

The Body Myth 

Mira is a teacher living in the heart of Suryam, the only place in the world the fickle Rasagura fruit grows. Mira lives alone, and with only the French existentialists as companions, until the day she witnesses a beautiful woman having a seizure in the park. Mira runs to help her but is cautious, for she could have sworn the woman looked around to see if anyone was watching right before the seizure began.

Mira is quickly drawn into the lives of this mysterious woman Sara, who suffers a myriad of unexplained illnesses, and her kind, intensely supportive husband Rahil, striking up intimate, volatile and fragile friendships with each of them that quickly become something more.

The Beauty of the Moment 

Susan is the new girl-she’s sharp and driven, and strives to meet her parents’ expectations of excellence. Malcolm is the bad boy-he started raising hell at age fifteen, after his mom died of cancer, and has had a reputation ever since.

Susan’s parents are on the verge of divorce. Malcolm’s dad is a known adulterer.

Susan hasn’t told anyone, but she wants to be an artist. Malcolm doesn’t know what he wants-until he meets her.

Love is messy and families are messier, but in spite of their burdens, Susan and Malcolm fall for each other. The ways they drift apart and come back together are the picture of being true to oneself.

Dawood’s Mentor by Hussain S. Zaidi

Tired of being bullied, a scrawny, impoverished Dawood Ibrahim is looking for a saviour, Khalid Khan Bachcha, who would teach him the ropes of handling a bunch of hooligans. Instead, what he gets is a mentor who eventually transforms him into a cunning mafia boss.

In Dawood’s Mentor, Dawood meets Khalid and they eventually forge an unlikely friendship. Together they defeat, crush and neutralize every mafia gang in Mumbai. Khalid lays the foundation for the D-Gang as Dawood goes on to establish a crime syndicate like no other and becomes India’s most wanted criminal.

Great leaders of innovation know that creativity is not enough. They succeed not only on the basis of their ideas, but because they have the vision, reputation, and networks to win the backing needed to commercialize them. It turns out that this quality–called “innovation capital”–is measurably more important for innovation than just being creative.

The authors have spent decades studying how people get great ideas (the subject of The Innovator’s DNA) and how people test and develop those ideas (explored in The Innovator’s Method).

Featuring interviews with the superstars of innovation–individuals like Jeff Bezos (Amazon), Elon Musk (Tesla), Marc Benioff (Salesforce), Indra Nooyi (PepsiCo), and Shantanu Narayen (Adobe)–this book will help you position yourself and your ideas to compete for attention and resources so that you can launch innovations with impact.

Here is an excerpt from the book!

The Virtuous Cycle of Innovation Leadership

Whatever your view of Elon Musk, one thing he did when he helped launch Tesla was articulate a lofty vision for the company.

“Our goal [is] . . . to accelerate the advent of sustainable transport by bringing compelling mass-market electric cars to market as soon as possible,” he wrote. “In order to get to that end goal, big leaps in technology are required. ”1 Musk then laid out his “master plan”—a strategy for launching desirable electric vehicles at the high end of the market followed by affordable electric vehicles for the mainstream market.

Sterling Anderson, former head of Tesla Model X and Tesla Autopilot and co-founder of Aurora Innovation (a startup that is successfully providing a full-stack self-driving solution for major automakers like Volkswagen and Hyundai), says that Musk’s success as an innovative leader stems largely from a reinforcing cycle of success triggered by an exciting and inspirational vision:

Elon understands people. He understands that a lofty vision, an inspirational vision, attracts world-class people,
particularly world-class engineers. With those world-class engineers, he’s able to build a better product. That better product attracts customers and attracts investors, and it’s self-reinforcing. As this feeds on itself, engineers are
increasingly inspired to join, not only because of the lofty vision but also because of the increasingly strong brand behind it. These conditions attract increasingly strong talent; it feels good to work there and to be viewed as someone who is helping drive innovation toward that lofty goal.

Without prompting, Anderson independently has described the same virtuous cycle that we have seen many leaders utilize with positive results. This cycle includes the following steps:

1. Identify an exciting, lofty, even inspirational vision. The vision needs to solve an important problem, pursue a big opportunity, or just be exciting.

2. The lofty vision attracts talented human capital (e.g., better engineers and scientists) who want to work on something exciting. It also attracts investors and/or resources from organization leaders who provide the resources and senior sponsorship needed to launch a successful innovation project.

3. The talented human capital increases the odds of developing a better product and customer experience. Put simply, talented people going after a lofty vision produces better results for the customer.

4. The better product or customer experience attracts customers. The increase in happy customers leads to the creation of a valuable, hopefully innovative, reputation. Customers of companies or brands with an innovative reputation experience “identification”—which means their personal identity gets tied up with the products and brand which makes them much more loyal and valuable customers.

The ability to attract customers and build a valuable brand leads to a reinforcing cycle. Going back to step number two: talented human capital and investors are attracted to companies and projects with a valuable brand and loyal customers. Thus, the cycle repeats.

Get your copy of the Innovation Capital today!

The Young and the Restless by Gurmehar Kaur, maps the journey of eight youth leaders, their aspirations for the country’s youth, their goals for themselves and their ideas for the nation. While giving a comprehensive understanding of the ideas and motivations of these leaders. The book explores whether these leaders are influenced by the shadow of their older party leaders.

Giving a clear narrative of the new-age politics of the country and where it is headed, the book provides a fresh view on the political sphere of the country.

Here we list the aspirations of these inspirational youth leaders for you:

1. Omar Abdullah

The ex-Chief Minister of Jammu and Kashmir, Mr. Omar Abdullah, is a driven politician with a zest to advocate for the peace of his native state. He talks about the Kashmir of his boyhood with its pristine beauty and the changes that have come about in the past few decades. Talking about the Kashmir of yesteryears, he shares what he believes is the best course-of-action for the state.

“That’s why I always say, for me, if we could restore Jammu and Kashmir in some way back to the state we grew up in, that would be the biggest service we could do to the younger generation.”

2. Sachin Pilot

The young Indian politician, puts forward his views about the importance of education in the the country. He believes that an educated society would do well to ward off the many evils of today’s world. With an insight into the many advantages of an educated society, Sachin Pilot explains how this nurtures people in the right direction.

“It’s not just educating children on an academic level, it’s about imparting ethics, values, history, our culture, not in a political way but to understand where we come from.”

3. Sowmya Reddy

Being an environment and animal activist, Sowmya Reddy ,an MLA from Karnataka, has always raised her voice against injustice. When speaking about the the many issues regarding animal cruelty, climate change and social inequalities, she stressed that one can only be more perceptible to social issues when they don’t limit themselves to formal education and have the freedom to learn from outside the world. She believes it is through this freedom that one can bring about a change in the society.

“With that, Sowmya confirmed to me that freedom was important to her and it showed through in all her actions, whether it was her choice to be vegan in a household that enjoyed non-vegetarian food or whether it was studying environmentalism away from home or whether it was to take the road less travelled and start an activist centre and cafe on her own.”

4. Jignesh Mevani

This young political activist and an MLA of Gujarat is known to have had a long history of political struggles during his initial years. Being vocal about caste discrimination from a very young age, he believes in working towards an egalitarian society.

“And what does working for the Dalit community mean? It means to stand up for them when they are oppressed and subjected to violence. that is what I learnt about leadership growing up.”

5. Shehla Rashid

An activist since her student days, Shehla Rashid has been actively supporting the cause of Kashmir and its people, gender and other social issues. She talks about the struggle of getting into the political sphere and hopes to one day be instrumental in bringing about a change for the country.

“I don’t know, there is bad in everything and we need reform everywhere, especially in politics. We need reform in marriage and we need more progressive institutions than marriage; similarly, we need better politics. Otherwise everything is bad.”

6. Aaditya Thackeray

The twenty-eight-year-old political leader from Maharashtra has ushered in a trend of new-age politics. Going against the grain in the political sphere, he has taken actions that represent a progressive understanding of the current world.

“I don’t think it plays much into my politics because the way I see politics or the things I’m doing in politics right now, be it the plastic ban or electric buses or trying to reform education, all of these issues are not only very important for me, it affects everyone.“

7. Madhukeshwar Desai

The promising young politician,  has proved to be a dynamic leader over the years. As a leader, he is aware of the responsibility he has towards the people and hopes to show people the right path.

“I think regardless of what I do, it’s about doing justice to what I do and making sure I don’t bring disgrace to something he did.”

8. Raghav Chadha

The twenty-nine years old leader, is a confident politician who strongly believes in his ideologies. Originally a chartered accountant, he realized the important for a corruption-free India, and hence decided to join politics.

“Therefore this thing has always been inside me. how can we actually get rid of corruption?… The common life is of an ordinary person who doesn’t know how to pay for his child’s next meal and that is because there is an unfair distribution of wealth due to corruption. Corruption is at the root of all causes.“

The Young and The Restless follows the journeys of eight youth leaders, their aspirations for the country’s youth, their aspirations for themselves and, most importantly, their aspirations for the nation.AVAILABLE NOW!

India, 1922. A curse seems to have fallen upon the royal family of Satapur, a princely kingdom tucked away in the lush Sahyadari mountains, where both the maharaja and his teenage son have met with untimely deaths. The state is now ruled by an agent of the British Raj on behalf of Satapur’s two maharanis, the dowager queen and her daughter-in-law.

Here’s an exciting excerpt from The Satapur Moonstone!

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As she walked, keeping her eyes on the path ahead of her, she saw how many roots there were—how many holes and ridges and places to trip. So many depressions were filling up with water, it was hard to know how deep the water was until she stepped in. If she twisted her ankle, she’d become an impossible burden. The men who had jogged so sure-footedly with the heavy palanquin weren’t singing any more; she imagined it was because their songs were fast-paced and she was forcing them to walk slowly. Or maybe they hated the rain, too.

She wondered if Colin had ever endured a failed palanquin ride. The ordeal of slogging through mud might be impossible with a wooden leg, but if he chose not to use it, his cane would also get stuck. Thinking of this made her step a little more quickly.

Eventually, her journey would end.

The dark rain cloud was both in front of them and behind, and rain continued falling in tiny, cold knife-pricks. She imagined it was probably raining at the circuit house, and that Colin was worrying about her.

When they came out of the trees, her boots were filled with mud. But the journey appeared to be almost done. Ahead lay what looked like a sentry’s tower.

‘We’re almost there!’ Perveen said, pointing to it.

‘No,’ Lakshman said. ‘That’s an old hunting tower.’

‘Should we wait there for the rain to stop?’ she asked hopefully.

Lakshman wiped water from his face before answering. ‘TheSatapur royal family used to hunt here because it is a good place for tigers and leopards. We are not so far from the palace. We should go on.’

Lakshman wanted to protect them all from predators and naturally wished to finish the job. She tried to form a picture in her mind of a bright, comfortable palace filled with lights and warmth. She had everything to look forward to, if she could just keep her feet moving.

After some time, she saw, through a break in the trees, a faraway wall. The wall stretched on. It looked like a walled city, but she was afraid to hear it was another place they couldn’t stay.

Lakshman smiled for the first time. ‘That is Satapur Palace! This is the place where you wished to come.’

She was too fatigued to answer, but his words made her legs move faster. As the fog cleared, she saw the wall was the facade of a giant grey stone palace punctuated with a series of towers topped by onion-shaped domes. The palace was so huge that it was surprising to see its massive arched entry protected by only two durwans. She
guessed they were guards from their blood-red livery, although they were not standing at attention but squatting under the entry’s filigreed brass roof to shelter from the rain.

It took fifteen minutes from first sight to reach the palace wall.

With a wide smile, Perveen rushed the last hundred feet to get underneath the entryway roof. But she realized that her movement looked like an affront, because the durwans cried out and grabbed their bayonets.

‘Do not worry, brothers! She has come to visit the maharanis,’ Lakshman said quickly. He had run up behind her.

‘It cannot be.’ One of the guards spat sideways as he regarded their party. ‘Who are you?’

Perveen realized that she was too bedraggled to look like anyone’s idea of a lady lawyer.

Resolve the mystery along with Perveen Mistry in Satapur Moonstone