In a land of exotic splendor, a young Englishwoman finds herself guardian of an orphan child believed by a dying maharajah to be endowed with magical gifts. It is a role that will take her on a perilous journey into a kingdom’s walled city to protect a child she doesn’t know from a culture she doesn’t understand...A Singular HostageThe year is 1838. Mariana Givens, a spirited young woman of twenty, has been sent to India to find a suitable husband. Traveling as a translator, she joins the entourage of Lord Auckland, the British Governor-General, as he journeys across India with an army ten thousand strong to meet the fabled Ranjit Singh, Maharajah of the Punjab. Eager young officers compete for Mariana’s favor, but it is with India that she falls in love: the baggage elephants tramping through country vast and wild; the scent of exotic foods at remote campsites; the enigmatic tutor who is her guide to native languages and ways. Lord Auckland must forge an alliance with Ranjit Singh that will deliver Afghanistan into British control, but as he negotiates his crucial treaty, Mariana is drawn into a perilous conspiracy surrounding the one-eyed Maharajah’s baby hostage--a child of mystical repute named Saboor.

A Singular Hostage

Literature & Fiction

Thalassa, Ali

Genre Fiction

CHARNWOOD (LARGE PRINT)

Sent to India to find a husband, Mariana Givens is facing the prospect of returning to Sussex ignominiously single. But the vastness of India has been a revelation. And before she leaves, Mariana is to accompany the Governor-General's party on their journey upcountry to meet with the Punjab's ageing Maharajah. Little does she know it, but Marianna is being pulled into the fate of a child whose existence she isn't yet aware of. For 18-month-old Saboor is being held hostage by the capricious Maharajah, who views him as a talisman against encroaching decrepitude. But the Maharajah has no concept of a child's needs and, with his mother poisoned, Saboor is dying from neglect. According to Saboor's grandfather, the visionary Shaikh Waliullah, only the young woman from Sussex can save him.

Contemporary

Headline/Review

As Lahore's rose scented air is rent by political feuding and tension, Mariana Givens must choose between her beloved little stepson and the life she has always known. Two years earlier, in 1838, Mariana became the guardian of three-year-old Saboor. They now live in Calcutta with her aunt and uncle, but Mariana is ostracised by the British community for her impulsive marriage to Saboor's native father. Her relatives insist she return to Lahore, a journey of over a thousand miles by river and on horseback, to ask for a divorce. This will mean giving up Saboor, but it may allow her to find a British husband and have a life of her own. Once in Lahore, as violence swirls around her, she is drawn towards the spiritual culture of her husband's Muslim family, and begins to wonder if she can bear to be cut off from them for ever.

A Beggar at the Gate

Headline Book Publishing

Companions of Paradise

Headline Book Publications

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