It is the eighteenth century.\n Emperor Aurangzeb has fallen, the Mughal Empire is a shadow of its former\n self, and India is rife with civil war. In these times of gardi, you’d have\n to be a lion to win power, and a wolf to keep it. When the beautiful Savitri,\n the only daughter of the Chief Minister of Purana Zilla, marries into a rich\n merchant household in Ranipur, she becomes Anamika. Her future seems\n assured—she is to bear her loving husband Abhi many children, eventually\n becoming the lady of the house and perpetuating the family’s fortunes. But a\n tragic accident on their wedding day renders Abhi paraplegic, seemingly\n dooming their perfect future. Anamika still finds bliss in her love for her\n husband, but her in-laws’ unfulfilled dreams of progeny threaten to consume\n and destroy her. But into her life enters Abdul—the illegitimate son of Shah\n Ahmad Khan, locked in a deadly war with his brother Hassan for the throne.\n This powerful, magnetic stranger upsets the balance of her everyday life,\n thrusting both Anamika and Abhi into a newfound world of intoxicating\n freedom, conflicting desires and deadly deceit. Crossing paths with the\n enigmatic courtesan-turned-bodyguard Nadya, the motherly Niloufer, the\n spirited young warrior princess Sonal, and a wide and motley cast of\n soldiers, assassins, courtesans, eunuchs, princes and queens, Anamika must\n make bold choices and adopt many names for the sake of both desire and\n survival.
Meghnad Desai is an economist by profession and taught at the London School of Economics for forty years. He is a keen observer of British politics and participates in it from his perch in the House of Lords. He has written books on economics, Marxism, Islamist terrorism, Ezra Pound and Bollywood. This is his first novel.
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