Book picks similar to
28 Years A Bachelor by Rasana Atreya
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One Last Thing Before I Go
Jonathan Tropper - 2012
His fleeting fame as the drummer for a one-hit wonder rock band is nearly a decade behind him. His ex-wife is about to marry a terrific guy. And his Princeton-bound teenage daughter Casey has just confided in him that she’s pregnant—because Silver is the one she cares least about letting down.So when Silver learns that he requires emergency life-saving heart surgery, he makes the radical decision to refuse the operation, choosing instead to spend what time he has left to repair his relationship with Casey, become a better man, and live in the moment—even if that moment isn’t going to last very long. As his exasperated family looks on, Silver grapples with the ultimate question of whether or not his own life is worth saving.
The Sari Shop Widow
Shobhan Bantwal - 2009
Now, ten years later, it stands out like a proud maharani amid Edison's bustling Little India. But when Anjali learns the shop is on the brink of bankruptcy, she feels her world unraveling...To the rescue comes Anjali's wealthy, dictatorial Uncle Jeevan and his business partner, Rishi Shah -- a mysterious Londoner, complete with British accent, cool gray eyes, and skin so fair it makes it hard to believe he's Indian. Rishi's cool, foreign demeanor triggers distrust in Anjali and her mother. But for Anjali, he also stirs something else, a powerful attraction she hasn't felt in a decade. And the feeling is mutual...Love disappointed Anjali once before and she's vowed to live without it -- though Rishi is slowly melting her resolve and, as the shop regains its footing, gaining her trust. But when a secret from Rishi's past is revealed, Anjali must turn to her family and her strong cultural upbringing to guide her in finding the truth...
A Little Ray of Sunshine
Lani Diane Rich - 2008
In fact, after she sent her life into a nosedive six years ago, she's tried to attract as little as possible -attention, people, or responsibility. She skips from town to town in an Airstream trailer, working odd jobs and keeping to herself until a sudden whim lets her know it's time to move again. And this works just fine, until the day two unexpected visitors show up at the New Jersey trailer park she calls home. One is a childhood friend with news: her mother and his father are getting married, and they want EJ to be there. The other is a sweet but odd woman named Jess, who says she's an angel specializing in cosmic relationship mending...and blueberry pancakes. Jess doesn't think it's any coincidence that this is all happening at once, but EJ would rather run herself over with her own Airstream before reconnecting with her neglectful, self-absorbed mother. When she wakes up to find her trailer cruising down the highway with a determined angel at the wheel, however, EJ realizes that sometimes what you want and what the Universe intends for you can be two very different things...
The Color of Our Sky
Amita Trasi - 2015
In an attempt to escape this legacy that binds her, Mukta is transported to a foster family in Bombay. There she discovers a friend in the high spirited eight-year-old Tara, the tomboyish daughter of the family, who helps her recover from the wounds of her past. Tara introduces Mukta to a different world—ice cream and sweets, poems and stories, and a friendship the likes of which she has never experienced before. As time goes by, their bond grows to be as strong as that between sisters. In 1993, Mukta is kidnapped from Tara’s room. Eleven years later, Tara who blames herself for what happened, embarks on an emotional journey to search for the kidnapped Mukta only to uncover long buried secrets in her own family.Moving from a remote village in India to the bustling metropolis of Bombay, to Los Angeles and back again, amidst the brutal world of human trafficking, this is a heartbreaking and beautiful portrait of an unlikely friendship—a story of love, betrayal, and redemption—which ultimately withstands the true test of time.
The Taliban Cricket Club
Timeri N. Murari - 2012
She takes care of her ill, widowed mother and her younger brother, Jahan. With the arrival of a summons for Rukhsana to appear before the infamous Ministry for the Propagation of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, the family’s world is shattered. The Minister, zorak Wahidi, has two goals in mind: to threaten the anti-Taliban news reporters and to announce the Taliban’s intention to hold a cricket tournament, the winner of which will represent Afghanistan in international cricket and give the brutal regime a cloak of respectability in the world.Rukhsana knows this is a ludicrous idea—the Taliban could never embrace a game rooted in civility, fair play and equality. And no one in Afghanistan even plays cricket—no one, that is, except Rukhsana.This could be, however, a way to get her male cousins and her brother out of Afghanistan for good. But Wahidi has a third goal in mind—to marry Rukhsana. The union would be her death sentence, wrenching her away from her family and placing her under Wahidi’s complete control. Forced into hiding and desperate to escape the country, Rukhsana realizes that Wahidi may have given her a way out, too. When her loyal, beloved cousins ask for her help, she sets about teaching them how to win their own freedom—with a bat and a ball.
Finding Charlie
Katie O'Rourke - 2015
When Charlie vanishes without warning, the people who love her are worried sick. Even if the law considers her an adult at nineteen, Charlie's still the baby of her already broken family. Older sister Olivia is determined to figure out what's happened. She finds a lost cell phone, an abandoned car and a shady boyfriend she's never met before. And he's not the only secret Charlie's been keeping.This disappearance feels uncomfortably familiar, reminding Olivia and her father of another loss years before. But this will be different, Olivia swears. Charlie's coming back.
Those Pricey Thakur Girls
Anuja Chauhan - 2013
Anjini, married but an incorrigible flirt; Binodini, very worried about her children's hissa in the family property; Chandrakanta, who eloped with a foreigner on the eve of her wedding; Eshwari, who is just a little too popular at Modern School, Barakhamba Road; and the Judge's favourite (though fathers shouldn't have favourites): the quietly fiery Debjani, champion of all the stray animals on Hailey Road, who reads the English news on DD and clashes constantly with crusading journalist Dylan Singh Shekhawat, he of shining professional credentials but tarnished personal reputation, crushingly dismissive of her state-sponsored propaganda, but always seeking her out with half-sarcastic, half-intrigued dark eyes. Spot-on funny and toe-curlingly sexy, Those Pricey Thakur Girls is rom-com specialist Anuja Chauhan writing at her sparkling best.
I Am an Executioner: Love Stories
Rajesh Parameswaran - 2012
From the lovesick tiger who narrates the unforgettable opener, “The Infamous Bengal Ming” (he mauls his zookeeper out of affection), to the ex-CompUSA employee who masquerades as a doctor; from a railroad manager in a turn-of-the-century Indian village, to an elephant writing her autobiography; from a woman whose Thanksgiving preparations put her husband to eternal rest, to the newlywed executioner of the title, these characters inhabit a marvelous region between desire and death, playfulness and violence. At once glittering and savage, daring and elegant, here are wholly unforgettable tales where reality loops in Borgesian twists and shines with cinematic exuberance, by an author who promises to dazzle the universe of American fiction.
A Case of Exploding Mangoes
Mohammed Hanif - 2008
Ali's target is none other than General Zia ul-Haq, dictator of Pakistan. Enlisting a rag-tag group of conspirators, including his cologne-bathed roommate, a hash-smoking American lieutenant, and a mango-besotted crow, Ali sets his elaborate plan in motion. There's only one problem: the line of would-be Zia assassins is longer than he could have possibly known.
Sacred Games
Vikram Chandra - 2006
It is is a story of friendship and betrayal, of terrible violence, of an astonishing modern city and its dark side.Seven years in the making, Sacred Games is an epic of exceptional richness and power. Vikram Chandra's novel draws the reader deep into the life of Inspector Sartaj Singh—and into the criminal underworld of Ganesh Gaitonde, the most wanted gangster in India. Sartaj, one of the very few Sikhs on the Mumbai police force, is used to being identified by his turban, beard and the sharp cut of his trousers. But "the silky Sikh" is now past forty, his marriage is over and his career prospects are on the slide. When Sartaj gets an anonymous tip-off as to the secret hide-out of the legendary boss of G-Company, he's determined that he'll be the one to collect the prize. Vikram Chandra's keenly anticipated new novel is a magnificent story of friendship and betrayal, of terrible violence, of an astonishing modern city and its dark side. Drawing inspiration from the classics of nineteenth-century fiction, mystery novels, Bollywood movies and Chandra's own life and research on the streets of Mumbai, Sacred Games evokes with devastating realism the way we live now but resonates with the intelligence and emotional depth of the best of literature.
The Tusk That Did the Damage
Tania James - 2015
Manu, the studious younger son of a rice farmer, loses his cousin to the Gravedigger’s violence and is drawn, with his wayward brother Jayan, into the sordid, alluring world of poaching. Emma is a young American working on a documentary with her college best friend, who witnesses the porous boundary between conservation and corruption and finds herself in her own moral gray area: a risky affair with the veterinarian who is the film’s subject. As the novel hurtles toward its tragic climax, these three storylines fuse into a wrenching meditation on love and betrayal, duty and loyalty, and the vexed relationship between man and nature.With lyricism and suspense, Tania James animates the rural landscapes where Western idealism clashes with local reality; where a farmer’s livelihood can be destroyed by a rampaging elephant; where men are driven to poaching. In James’ arrestingly beautiful prose, The Tusk That Did the Damage blends the mythical and the political to tell a wholly original, utterly contemporary story about the majestic animal, both god and menace, that has mesmerized us for centuries.
The Guide
R.K. Narayan - 1958
Mistaken for a holy man, he plays the part and succeeds so well that God himself intervenes to put Raju's newfound sanctity to the test. Narayan's most celebrated novel, The Guide won him the National Prize of the Indian Literary Academy, his country's highest literary honor.
The Tour
Jean Grainger - 2013
But this particular tour with its cast of unintentionally hilarous characters leaves seasoned tour guide Conor speechless for the first time in his life. Among this eclectic group are Corlene, a gold digging multiple divorcee on the prowl; Patrick, a love-starved Boston cop; Dylan, a goth uilleann piper; Dorothy, a poisonous college professor who wouldn't spend Christmas; Elliot, a wall street shark who finally shows his true colours, and then there's Ellen, back on Irish soil after so many years to discover a truth no-one could have guessed, least of all herself. And thats just a few of the colourful cast.The locals they meet on their journey, eccentric West Brits, passionate musicians, Ukranian waitresses and Garda high flyers all help to make this a tour that nobody will ever forget. And of course, there's Conor, stuck in the thick of it all, solving problems and mending hearts, but what about his own?
The Rice Mother
Rani Manicka - 2002
At fourteen, she finds herself traded in marriage to a stranger across the ocean in the fascinating land of Malaysia. Duped into thinking her new husband is wealthy, she instead finds herself struggling to raise a family with a man too impractical to face reality and a world that is, by turns, unyielding and amazing, brutal and beautiful. Giving birth to a child every year until she is nineteen, Lakshmi becomes a formidable matriarch, determined to wrest from the world a better life for her daughters and sons and to face every new challenge with almost mythic strength.By sheer willpower Lakshmi survives the nightmare of World War II and the Japanese occupation -- but not unscathed. The family bears deep scars on its back and in turn inflicts those wounds on the next generation. But it is not until Lakshmi's great-granddaughter, Nisha, pieces together the mosaic of her family history that the legacy of the Rice Mother bears fruit.
The B&B at Tigertail Beach, Prequel (Marco Island Series Prequel)
Jessie Kelley - 2021
Her life has been going perfectly until she lets her friend, Marie, not only talk her into going to a party, but also persuade her into wearing a rather revealing outfit.Julie realizes she has compromised her values when she looks at herself in the mirror and sees a different woman staring back at her. Her usual conservative mode of dress has always had the effect of keeping rakish types at bay. So, when she meets Marco, a lascivious playboy who won’t take no for an answer, she is completely out of her depth.But fate takes over, and she is soon well and truly in love with the man of her dreams. Jim is everything that a woman like Julie could desire and she trusts him completely. He is a young entrepreneur who has recently started his own winery, and even her brother Hans appears to approve. Unbeknown to Julie, he hasn’t been entirely honest with her about his past, but the terrible consequences of that are still very far in the future. Right now, they have everything, and it seems as though their happy ending is within their grasp.Disaster strikes in the form of Julie’s would-be ravager. Marco. He has been lying low and his festering ego has now overtaken his sanity. Driven by vengeance he hatches an evil plan, which could destroy their happiness forever…Will Julie ever manage to escape from her predator and find peace and love? Will their love survive the twist of fate that brings them to the brink of disaster?Jump right in, the waters of Marco Island are beckoning. Tag along with Jim and Julie and all the characters, tension, and dramatic twists and turns of the Hart family and their friends, starting with this thrilling prequel to the 5-book series.