Indian Summer

When 14-year-old Sarla decides to spend a summer in India with her grandparents a whole new world opens up to her. Everyone dotes on Sarla, the visiting Westerner; all except the housekeeper's granddaughter, Bina, who has been funded through school by Sarla's grandparents and treated almost as their own.

As studious and responsible Bina gradually opens up to vivacious and carefree Sarla her extraordinary secret is revealed: her mother is a notorious outlaw known as the Bandit Queen. Jailed for murdering her abusive husband, Bina's mother is honorary leader of the much-feared local Liberation Front and is revered and prayed to as a goddess by villagers for miles around. Meanwhile Bina is falling in love with the nephew of an aging local Princess and will do anything to keep her secret safe.

And as Sarla finds out, the secret doesn't end there.

A glorious evocation of India and an incisive look at the issues of class, empire and women's rights there, INDIAN SUMMER is a gripping and beautifully-written novel for readers aged 11 and up.