But when Kriya vanishes without a trace, Shakti is unwittingly swept into a cataclysmic vortex of greed, lust and betrayal. Shakti meets Shiva, a struggling Silicon Valley entrepreneur, and discovers that love is an enigmatic cosmic force. Shakti and Shiva are thrust on a frantic race against time through the dark Mumbai underbelly, forbidden Thailand islands, and treacherous cliffs in the Andaman Sea, where danger lurks in every shadow. As they get closer to the truth, they realize that millions of innocent lives are at stake. Quest for Kriya is an epic saga of love, friendship and sacrifice. The journey is incredible. The emotions are real. The transformation is eternal.

    In this collection of his stories (each of which has a story behind it), you'll read about two retired spiritual leaders who experience a miracle in their nursing home, a gay relationship that must end between an American man and a Thai student, the astonishing adventures of an early mid-life failure, the thrilling chase one gay man undertakes for another intriguing, confusing, mysterious man, and a mind-blowing time-travel misadventure involving a man and a dog, as well as a few other surprises. This genre bending collection will captivate you. You might even enjoy the stories. Adam Carpenter Welles works in media in a major city in the Southeastern United States.

    With her Scots-Italian father or Fascist mother? With Mussolini, or her King? With the life she wants, or is told to live?As Germans occupy the mountains round Barga, and US Buffalo soldiers draw near, loyalties are tested and families torn apart. Frank Chapel, a young, black soldier fighting for a country that refuses him the vote, is unlike anyone Vita has met. In the chaos, they find each other - but can their growing love defy prejudice and war?The Sound of the Hours is an all-consuming tale of romance and loss. It is at once an intimate and tender portrait of first love and a sweeping evocation of an extraordinary, devastating moment in history.

    At fourteen she is pressed into the service of the temperamental sage Durvasa who grants her a boon. Its first use, however, only brings her adversity and a shameful secret. With marriage to Pandu, Kunti dreams of a better future, but a curse makes him leave the throne of Hastinapur to his sibling, the blind Dhritarashtra, and retreat to the forest. The births of the five Pandavas rekindle Kunti’s hopes of returning to Hastinapur, but these are destroyed once again when Pandu dies suddenly. Kunti journeys to the kingdom, no longer its queen but a widow, a dependant as are her sons. She must now take up the task of guiding them through the long struggle to get their inheritance, a struggle made harder by the discovery that the illegitimate child she had abandoned long ago is alive and a sworn enemy of the Pandavas. Recasting the Mahabharata from the viewpoint of Kunti, The Kaunteyas replaces the idealized mother figure with a fully three-dimensional woman, providing new insights into the epic.

    Gopal Hosur, Rtd. IPS at Bengaluru ; Mr. Ramana, National Award Nominee and Scientist at Hyderabad ; Dr. Col. Prakash & Dr. Khan at International Conference of Medical Sciences and Social Sciences, Mysuru ; Sri. Somaraju, Prl District and Sessions Judge,Vijayapura ; Dr. M. S. Dayanandaswamy (Principal of Sri Siddhartha Institute of Management Studies), Dr Muddesha B T (Director of Sri Siddhartha Center for Media Studies), Dr B. Azmathulla (Professor and Placement Officer of Sri Siddhartha Institute of Management Studies) at TumkurInvited Speaker - Prajati TV & Community Radio Media coverage - Leading regional (Kannada) newspaper, The Covai PostSet in the backdrop of 1990 Calcutta, She is a story about finding one’s own identity in spite of all odds. The story spins around the life of Kusum, a brave heart whose identity is often untitled and blurred; it does not belong anywhere, definitely not under the ‘he’ or ‘she’ bracket, thanks to our social conditioning. Will she be successful in her mission? Find out in She, an utterly absorbing read that derives inspiration from Tagore’s “Ekla Cholo Re” song, which urges everyone to move on despite the fear of abandonment from others. "She is one of the finest book to read" - Sujeeth Kumar, Project Manager, MNC Bengaluru "A story often untold. Appreciate the team for presenting She in the best possible harmonious way!" - N K Narasimhan, CEO and Co-Founder, Nascor Technologies, Bengaluru "Don't miss the ending!" - Raghunath Babu Are, Employee at Microsoft, Bengaluru

    Fresh out of college, she has just stepped into the corporate world, chasing her dreams. Life seems perfect.Ayush meets Anushkaa on her first day at work, and feels a spark of liking rush through him. Torn between his heart and mind, he is sure he is smitten by her magical charm. A chance conversation with Anushkaa evokes emotions he hasn’t felt in years. She seems to be perfect.But does a perfect life exist?When they meet again four years later, their hearts are broken and their will to love is lost. They heal each other’s hearts and help each other achieve their dreams. Finally, when they start living for themselves and each other, life plays a cruel card.Anushkaa’s diary is her only true companion, holding within the pages the secret that nobody else will ever know. Join Ayush and Anushkaa on this rollercoaster of emotions, and take a peek into the secret Anushkaa has buried in The Diary of My Love.

    As they move from a cramped, ant-infested shack to a larger house on the other side of Bangalore, and try to adjust to a new way of life, the family dynamic begins to shift. Allegiances realign; marriages are arranged and begin to falter; and conflict brews ominously in the background. Things become “ghachar ghochar”—a nonsense phrase uttered by one meaning something tangled beyond repair, a knot that can't be untied. Elegantly written and punctuated by moments of unexpected warmth and humor, Ghachar Ghochar is a quietly enthralling, deeply unsettling novel about the shifting meanings—and consequences—of financial gain in contemporary India.

    Ever. Especially using my blindness. Especially in public. Don't help me unless I ask. Otherwise you're just getting in my way or bothering me. Don't be weird. Seriously, other than having my eyes closed all the time, I'm just like you only smarter.Parker Grant doesn't need 20/20 vision to see right through you. That's why she created the Rules: Don't treat her any differently just because she's blind, and never take advantage. There will be no second chances. Just ask Scott Kilpatrick, the boy who broke her heart. When Scott suddenly reappears in her life after being gone for years, Parker knows there's only one way to react - shun him so hard it hurts. She has enough on her mind already, like trying out for the track team (that's right, her eyes don't work but her legs still do), doling out tough-love advice to her painfully naive classmates, and giving herself gold stars for every day she hasn't cried since her dad's death three months ago. But avoiding her past quickly proves impossible, and the more Parker learns about what really happened - both with Scott, and her dad - the more she starts to question if things are always as they seem. Maybe, just maybe, some Rules are meant to be broken. Combining a fiercely engaging voice with true heart, debut author Eric Lindstrom's Not If I See You First illuminates those blind spots that we all have in life, whether visually impaired or not.

    An ordinary bank. An ordinary street in an ordinary town. Nothing ever happens, until, one day, a shocking robbery turns life upside down for five people: Cillian, a police detective,Martha, the woman he thought was the life of his life,Tobias, who came to Ireland after WWII and now lies in a coma, shot in the bank robbery,Roman, the young Polish teenager who is suspected of pulling the triggerand his mother Rosa, the cleaner, who dreamed of a better life for herself and her son . . . . . . and things will never be ordinary again.Ciara Geraghty's writing has that rare ability to make you laugh out loud as well as cry. She combines tangled human relationships with humour, romance and warmth to create something truly special.

    The name indicates that this is a set of stories having it's own fragrance.

    An attack by the terrorist group Invisible Hand has brutally eliminated the Indian Prime Minister and the union cabinet. As a national emergency is declared, chaos, destruction and terror reign supreme. From the ashes of this falling world, rises an unconventional hero – a vigilante known only as Kalki. Backed by a secret society called The Rudras, Kalki, along with Nushen, the Chinese superhuman spy, must do the impossible to save his country, and the world.But who is Kalki? A flesh-and-blood crusader with a mysterious past? Or the Messiah the world has been waiting for? The future of human survival depends on a single man. Will he become the living God prophesied as the last avatar of Lord Vishnu, or will he fade away as an outlaw?

    After nine short but blissful years of marriage, American expat Gloria Burgess's world shatters when her British artist husband dies of leukemia. Estranged from her mother, utterly alone in her adopted home of London, she must now struggle to raise her young son on her own -- and fight the temptation to sink into the self-absorption of grief that once drove her father to suicide. As she puts on a retrospective of her late husband's work, Gloria finds solace in the form of an empathetic friendship with a charming widower, and agrees to let her mother cross the Atlantic to stay with her for their first visit in a decade. The reunion could drive the wedge between them deeper ... or offer Gloria a priceless opportunity for regaining equilibrium and wholeness. Will she seize the opportunity, or turn her back on a new beginning?

    Badly injured, he escapes on a nightmare trek through the jungle, hunted by the Army, the CIA, and death squads. Healed by guerrilla doctor Dona Villalobos, he falls in love with her and tries to save her from the War’s widening horror of insanity, tragedy, and death. Caught in the crucible of violence and love, he learns the peaks and depths the human heart can reach, and what humans will do for, and to,each other. Based on the author’s own experiences as one of the last foreign correspondents left alive in Guatemala after over 100 journalists had been killed by Army death squads. • “A riveting thriller of murder, politics, and lies.” —London Broadcasting • “An extraordinary story that speaks from and to the heart. And a terrifying depiction of one man’s battle against the CIA and Latin American death squads.” —BBC • “A riveting story where even the good guys are bad guys, set in the politically corrupt and drug infested world of present-day Central America.” —Middlesborough Evening Gazette • “The climax is among the most horrifying I have ever read.” —Liverpool Daily Post • An ideal thriller for the beach, but be prepared to be there when the sun goes down.”—Herald Express Biography Mike Bond "The master of the existential thriller" (BBC) Best-selling novelist, war and human rights correspondent, environmental activist, award-winning poet and international energy expert, Mike Bond has lived and worked in many dangerous, remote and war-torn regions of the world. His critically acclaimed novels depict the innate hunger of the human heart for good, the intense joys of love, the terror and fury of battle, the sinister vagaries of politics and multinational corporations, and the magical beauty of the vanishing natural world. His latest novel, SAVING PARADISE, the epic of a Hawaiian surfer and former Special Forces vet caught up in the murder of a beautiful Honolulu reporter, has been called the "eco-novel of the decade" for its depiction of corporate and political corruption and the battle for Hawaii's remaining paradises. His four previous novels are all based on his experiences in far, dangerous corners of the world: THE LAST SAVANNA: A former British commando battles elephant poachers who then kidnap the woman he loves, in this acclaimed inside story of Africa's disappearing savannas, animals and freedoms. CROSSFIRE: A British undercover agent fights for his life in Beirut at the height of the Lebanese War -- a deep look into the Middle East's ancient wars and hatreds. FIRE LIKE THE SUN: An international best-seller about U.S. nuclear warheads lost in the Himalayas, a manhunt through Nepal, Iran, Greece, Algeria, France, Virginia and Colorado. HOUSE OF JAGUAR: Vietnam vet and weed smuggler Joe Murphy loses his plane in a Guatemalan jungle attack, falls in love with the woman guerrilla who heals him, and fights to protect them both as the death squads hunt them down.

    In Rashid's opium room the air is thick and potent. A beautiful young woman leans to hold a long-stemmed pipe over a flame, her hair falling across her dark eyes. Around her, men sprawl and mutter in the gloom, each one drifting with his own tide. Here, people say that you introduce only your worst enemy to opium.Outside, stray dogs lope in packs. Street vendors hustle. Hookers call for custom through the bars of their cages as their pimps slouch in doorways in the half-light. There is an underworld whisper of a new terror: the Pathar Maar, the stone killer, whose victims are the nameless, invisible poor. There are too many of them to count in this broken city.Narcopolis is a rich, chaotic, hallucinatory dream of a novel that captures the Bombay of the 1970s in all its compelling squalor. With a cast of pimps, pushers, poets, gangsters and eunuchs, it is a journey into a sprawling underworld written in electric and utterly original prose.

    Did she choose this life? No, because that would be too easy—and nothing in Willa’s life is easy. It’s her famous genius mother’s idea to send her to ultra-expensive, ultra-exclusive Pembroke Prep, and Willa has no intention of fitting in. But when she meets peculiar, glittering Remy Taft, the richest, most mysterious girl on campus, she starts to see a foothold in this foreign world—a place where she could maybe, possibly, sort of fit in. When Willa looks at Remy, she sees a girl who has everything. But for Remy, having everything comes at a price. And as she spirals out of control, Willa can feel Remy spinning right out of her grasp.