All information sourced from publishers.
The Tiger’s Share, Keshava Guha
Tara, a successful Dehli lawyer, is everything her younger brother isn’t: dedicated, independent, thriving. When their beloved father retires, he summons them to a meeting. But what he has to say threatens to tear the family apart.
Tara’s friend Lila has it all: a great job, a lovely home, a beautiful family. But when Lila’s father dies unexpectedly, her brother wastes no time in claiming what he thinks is his.
Together, Tara and Lila are forced to confront the challenge that their ambition poses to patriarchal Delhi society.
Hot Water, Bhavika Govil
It has always been Mira, Ma and Ashu. The three of them – as they sing Simon & Garfunkel in Ma’s sun-yellow car, watch TV on the sofa and holiday on the mango farm – are bound firmly together. Yet, beneath this tale of proximity lurks another story – that of a family in hot water.
Nine-year-old Mira, 14-year-old Ashu and Ma harbour secrets. All of them confront questions that have no neat answers. Where is Ma’s husband, for instance? Who does Ashu pine for? Why is Mira on the alert?
One long, hot summer, the secrets come tumbling out. And the world Ma, Mira and Ashu have cobbled together threatens to give way.
Tales from the Dawn-Lit Mountains: Stories from Arunachal Pradesh, Subi Taba
This book features stories that are products of visceral observation and a delicate understanding of the ethnic communities living under intervening shadows of magic and realism in the isolated hinterlands of the state. A village is haunted by an insidious spirit tiger. A bee sting reminds a Nocte boy of his brother’s beheading and transforms him into a deadly headhunter. A Donyi-Polo priest must continue practising his animistic rituals to preserve the fading vestiges of his indigenous religion. The curse of a high priest follows the thief who stole the forbidden sacred ornaments…
The Oracle of Hate, Hamza Jalil Albasit
For ten years, Waleed has been living under a curse; his mother, Fouzia, had traded his soul for a second son by scheming with a Satanic sorcerer. Now 23, Waleed is thrown into the dark underbelly of Karachi when he gets mugged by two mysterious bike riders. He seeks revenge – first by hunting for his assaulters, and then, seduced by thuggery, becoming a street criminal himself. However, his nights of marauding and petty crime come to an abrupt end when he gets initiated into the Muhajir Liberation Party, the ruling political party of Karachi.
His family, the Ahmeds, are cursed with their own predicaments: his father Qazi-ud-din loses his job; Fouzia is haunted by an army of djinns; his sister Sadia suffers the unwanted attention of teenage boys even as she writes poems with her ghost sister, Nadia; and Waleed’s Satan-blessed younger brother Hameed struggles to remain God’s favourite child.
As the general elections of 2013 draw near, Waleed is asked to assume command of a gang of lowlifes while simultaneously dealing with capital felonies, political deceit and family misfortune. On this path towards a life more meaningful than his molested past, will Waleed find redemption?
Gunboy, Shreyas Rajagopal
Best friends Arvind and Sudipto are outsiders in the industrial steel town of Rannwara, Maharashtra, and because of it, every day after school, they are bullied mercilessly by Jaggi Ranade, the son of the most powerful mafia boss in the area. Escape is simply not an option for the 12-year-olds. That is, until Amar Singh comes to town for a hit.
Quick, quiet and deadly, the brooding Amar Singh is fabled among hitmen. His ability to avoid death is overshadowed only by the legend of his most prized weapon – the Gun. Gleaming white, adorned with gold and enamel, it is a weapon of the gods, one that chooses its shooter.
When Amar's and Arvind's paths collide, the young boy finds himself in possession of this marvel – an opportunity for retribution, to avenge his humiliation. With a single shot, he sets ablaze a town that is waiting to explode.
The Beast Within, Rudraneil Sengupta
When a young girl falls to a gory death from the terrace of a plush mansion, an overworked Delhi Police sees an open-and-shut case of accident or suicide. He is sent down to cool off after an outer district gangland arrest are the newly arrived Crime Branch unit of Inspector Kumar and his young team. Squeezing himself into a case no one wants to chase, the self-doubting inspector, parent to a dead daughter himself, is convinced that all is not sparkling clean in the astringent interiors of the house where the minor girl was a full-time domestic worker.
