The Impeccable Integrity Of Ruby R

Ruby Rauf is an idealistic, industrious scholarship student with a fixed plan. She is going to ace her exams and get a decent job so she never has to suffer the daily degradation of poverty again. Yet, when she meets the compelling actor-turned-politician Saif Haq, her world is upended. Dazzled by his charisma, inspired by his zeal, she quits her degree midway to join his campaign as his social media manager. Ruby soon discovers that politics, even with a leader as upright as Saif Haq, is a moral minefield. Diligent, sincere but desperately naïve, Ruby longs to do the right thing but struggles at first to square her innate integrity with the difficult choices her job demands. As she wades deeper into the quagmire of political intrigue and the savage world of social media, her values grow more flexible, her methods more ruthless. She out-thinks allies and rivals to deliver brilliant results. Resented and admired by her colleagues, favoured by Saif, Ruby appears unstoppable-until one day when Saif asks her to prove her loyalty by making the most painful sacrifice of all. With quicksilver dialogue, shrewd political insight and a thoughtful take on the MeToo debate, this sparkling novel reveals Moni Mohsin on top satirical form.

As every woman knows, matchmaking is no easy job. Particularly when you're trying to find a girl for your dull, balding, freshly-divorced cousin and on top of that manage a house full of servants, shop for contraband Prada goods and attend parties every night. Not to mention the fact that your husband disapproves of everything you do, your city is under attack, and your friends can't be trusted - how is a girl to cope? Originally published with the title Tender Hooks

Pakistan may be making headlines—but Butterfly is set to conquer the world. ‘Everyone knows me. All of Lahore, all of Karachi, all of Isloo—oho, baba, Islamabad —half of Dubai, half of London and all of Khan Market and all the nice, nice bearers in Imperial Hotel also...No ball, no party, no dinner, no coffee morning, no funeral, no GT —Get-Together, baba—is complete without me.’ Meet Butterfly, Pakistan’s most lovable, silly, socialite. An avid partygoer, inspired misspeller, and unwittingly acute observer of Pakistani high society, Butterfly is a woman like no other. In her world, SMS becomes S & M and people eat ‘three tiara cakes’ while shunning ‘do number ka maal’. ‘What cheeks!’ as she would say. As her country faces tribulations – from 9/11 to the assassination of Benazir Bhutto—Butterfly glides through her world, unfazed, untouched, and stopped short only by the chip in her manicure. Wicked, irreverent, and hugely entertaining, The Diary of a Social Butterfly gives you a delicious glimpse into the parallel universe of the have-musts.

In 1984, Simranjit Singh Mann resigned from the Indian Police Service in protest of Operation Blue Star, the Indian Army operation ordered by Indira Gandhi, then prime minister, that cleared the Golden Temple complex of Sikh militants. Mann was subsequently charged, among other things, with conspiracy to assassinate Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. A passionate Sikh whose radical beliefs were honed by his family, Mann went underground and was apprehended while trying to flee the country. He spent five years in prison, after which all charges were dropped. Three decades after Blue Star, his daughter Pavit Kaur looks back on the years her father spent in prison. In this disarmingly honest and emotionally charged account, Pavit Kaur documents her father’s hellish journey through the Indian prison system. This is also a personal story and the story of a family during one of the most fraught times in India’s history.

A Fine Balance, Rohinton Mistry’s stunning internationally acclaimed bestseller, is set in mid-1970s India. It tells the story of four unlikely people whose lives come together during a time of political turmoil soon after the government declares a “State of Internal Emergency.” Through days of bleakness and hope, their circumstances – and their fates – become inextricably linked in ways no one could have foreseen. Mistry’s prose is alive with enduring images and a cast of unforgettable characters. Written with compassion, humour, and insight, A Fine Balance is a vivid, richly textured, and powerful novel written by one of the most gifted writers of our time.

I tell you the halaats are so bad, so bad that don’t even ask. The Talibans sitting on top of our heads, bombs bursting left, right and centre, drones droning away, load-shedding a hundred hours a day, servants answering back, in-laws trying to upstage you, friends throwing you out of their kitties and on top of that elections ka tamasha. Janoo tau is coming closer and closer to a nervous brake out while Mummy is getting sterile dementia. As for Kulchoo, bhai, don’t even ask. But I’ve decided, come what may, I tau am not going to let anyone clamp my style. I’m going to live just as I like—watching my Turkish soaps, going to GTs and weddings, throwing kitty parties, telling everyone everything saaf-saaf and, of course, doing summers in London—voh tau must hai na. And I’m going to do it in my Jimmy Choo ki heels and my sleeveless designer shirts, and my streaked hair and my Prada ki sunglasses. This much I’m telling you all from now only. So tighten your seat belts, okay?

Gaelle de Barbet is sixteen years old in 1940 when the German army occupies France and frightening changes begin. She is shocked and powerless when French gendarmes take away her closest friend, Rebekah Feldmann, and her family, and send them to a detention camp for deportation to an unknown, ominous fate. The local German military commandant makes Gaelle's family estate outside Lyon into his headquarters. Her father and brother are killed by the Germans; her mother fades away into madness and ill health. Trusted friends and employees become traitors. And by accident, Gaelle begins a perilous journey with the French Resistance, hoping to save lives to make up for the beloved friend she could do nothing to help. Taking terrifying risks, Gaëlle becomes a valuable member of the Resistance, fearlessly delivering Jewish children to safety under the eyes of the Gestapo and their French collaborators. Then she is suddenly approached by the German commandant with an astonishing, dangerous plan to save part of France's artistic heritage. Conducted in secret, flawlessly carried out, her missions will mark her for years, when she is falsely accused of collaboration at the end of the war. Orphaned and alone, she begins a new life in Paris, with the ghosts of the past always close at hand. Gaëlle’s life will take her from Paris to New York, from a career as a Dior model to marriage and motherhood, unbearable loss, and mature, lasting love. She returns to Paris to run a small museum, honoring victims of the Holocaust. But her label as a collaborator remains.