Of ya-yas and fantastic flights

NEW RELEASES

£9.99

The arrival of a young boy in an upper middle class Bengali household triggers a story of love, desire and renunciation. Set in New Delhi and Varanasi, Across The Mystic Shore explores the entwining lives of four women over a period of 20 years, during which they are forced to confront their past decisions in order to understand their present delusions and insecurities. Central to the story is a dark secret that demands expiation from those entangled in it.

Written with humour and compassion, Across The Mystic Shore is full of the sights and sounds of India. It explores conflicts peculiar to Indian society and a universal underlying message about the strength of love.

Ya-Yas in Bloom

Rebecca Wells
HarperCollins
292 pages
£4.99

Rebecca Wells' The Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood became a publishing phenomenon a few years ago and there's no reason why this sequel shouldn't do just as well.

When four-year-old Teensy Whitman stuffs a pecan up her nose, she sets off an unlikely chain of events that lead her to become true "sister-friends" with Caro, Vivi and Necie "" the original Ya-Ya Sisterhood. The result? Crises of faith and hilarious lapses of parenting skills, brushes with alcoholism and glimpses of the dark reality of racial bigotry, as well as the Ya-Ya values of unconditional loyalty, high style and Cajun sass.

Passarola Rising

Azhar Abidi
Penguin Books India
256 pages
Rs 350

This is a historical tale of two brothers and their love of flight. Bartolomeu Lourenço builds the airship Passarola to escape the intellectually stultifying climate of eighteenth-century Portugal, where his pursuit of scientific knowledge is condemned as heresy.

He and his brother Alexandre take to the air, and journey through much of Europe, from the Spanish countryside to the salons and bordellos of Paris, encountering some of the most colourful characters of the European Enlightenment, from the loquacious Voltaire to the irascible King Stanislaus of Poland.

After a long and arduous flight to the desolate far reaches of the North Pole that all but kills them, Alexandre opts out of further adventures, but Bartolomeu continues to fly alone.