Showing results by narrator "Rita Sharma" in All Categories

A delicious Christmas feast of short stories from the Sunday Times No. 1 bestselling author of A French Affair and The Perfect Match. Add some extra sparkle to your Christmas by joining Katie Fforde for a perfect, romantic Christmas feast of short stories. Collected together for the first time...

Oz and Lily’s family have inherited an ancient chocolate shop and they’re moving in upstairs. It’s the perfect home...apart from the small fact that it’s haunted. And then they discover some gold chocolate moulds - with magic powers! Soon the ghosts are joined by some evil villains determined to get their hands on the priceless secrets of the magical chocolate.

She is benevolent and nurturing, yet fierce and terrible, a warrior and a lover. She creates and gives life, is death personified and the one who grants eternal salvation. She is the ultimate form of reality, the cosmos. The Goddess inspires deep devotion, and it is not surprising to see her being worshipped and revered across homes in India. Shakti delves into this rich tradition of the Divine Feminine as She is represented across India and the subcontinent.

A magic spell has spun Flora into the past. She’s mysteriously swapped lives with a schoolgirl in 1935! No iPod? No cell phone? No hair products? How will she survive? Now Flora’s a new girl at St. Winifred’s, where she has to speak French at breakfast, wear hideous baggy bloomers, and sleep in a freezing dormitory.

A secret government department, once again, needs the magical help of Oz and Lily in a desperate new mission. Along with everyone’s favourite cantankerous cat, Demerara, her ratty companion Spike, and the help of some powerfully magical chocolate, the children must travel back in time to the height of the Blitz. Can they defeat some very dangerous supernatural creatures and save London’s famous cathedral from destruction by fire? The exciting companion to The Whizz Pop Chocolate Shop.

In the dead of night, Ayesha takes her daughter, Sabina, and slips quietly from her home, leaving behind a life of full of pain. Boarding a coach to London, all Ayesha wants is a fresh start. Hayden, a former popstar, has kept himself hidden away for years. He's only opened up his home to two people - Crystal, a professional dancer with a heart of gold, and Joy, an ill-tempered retiree with a soft spot for waifs and strays.

For years Bilal Hasham and his wife, Mariam, have lived contented, quiet lives in the sleepy rural village of Babbel's End. Now all that is about to change. On her deathbed, Bilal's mother reaches for his hand. Instead of whispering her final prayers, she gives him a task: build a mosque in his country village. Mariam is horrified by Bilal's plan. His friends and neighbours are unnerved. As outrage sweeps Babbel's End, battle lines are drawn. His mother's dying wish reveals deeper divisions in their village than Bilal had ever imagined.

In her insightful study of this classic, Gayatri Chatterjee draws on new research in the Mehboob studio archive to outline the film's eventful production history, the ambitious vision of its director, and the performances of its stars. Rooted both in Hindu mythology and in the collective experience of a newly-independent nation-state on the brink of industrialisation and social change, this family melodrama inexorably towards tragedy and renewal.

Wish We Knew What to Say is a timely and urgent book that gives scenarios, questions, thought starters, resources and advice in an accessible manner on how to tackle tricky conversations around race and racism with confidence and awareness. It brings in the science of how children perceive race and form racial identity, combining it with personal stories and experiences to create a handy guide that every parent would refer to again and again.

Sofia Khan is single once more, after her sort-of-boyfriend proves just a little too close to his parents. And she'd be happy that way too, if her boss hadn't asked her to write a book about the weird and wonderful world of Muslim dating. Of course, even though she definitely isn't looking for love, to write the book she does need to do a little research...

Written by the ancient Indian philosopher Vatsyayana sometime between the first and sixth centuries A.D., the Kama Sutra is literally translated as "Aphorisms on Love". It is intended as a manual for not only love and intimacy but also a treatise on the politics and customs of relationships between men and women. The Kama Sutra, while sought after for its instruction on sexual positions, is much more than just a guide for lovemaking. Presented here is the classic translation by Sir Richard Francis Burton.

Make a wish. The words have haunted Rashmi since she first heard them whispered the night before her mother died, when she was just 10 years old. Rashmi’s mother used to tell her stories of a magical garden lit only by the moon, whose blossoms grant wishes. For years, Rashmi believed the whisper somehow came from the mysterious moon garden of her mother’s stories and that her own failure to respond—to wish—may have cost her mother her life.

Sofia Khan is just married. But no-one told her life was going to be this way.... Her living situation is in dire straits, her husband Conall is distant and his annoyingly attractive colleague is ringing all sorts of alarm bells. When her mother forces them into a belated wedding ceremony (elopement: you can run, but you can't hide), Sofia wonders if it might be a chance to bring them together. But when it forces Conall to confess his darkest secret, it might just tear them apart.