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The Japanese Lover
Parvathi leaves her native Ceylon for Malaya and an arranged marriage to a wealthy businessman. But her father has cheated, supplying a different girl’s photograph, and Kasu Marimuthu, furious, threatens to send her home in disgrace. Gradually husband and wife reach an agreement, and the naïve young girl learns to assume the air of sophisticated mistress of a luxurious estate. She even adopts his love child and treats Rubini as her own daughter – a generous act which is rewarded by a long-wished-for son. But it is a life without passion, and Parvathi dreams of loving – and being loved – with complete abandon. When the Japanese invade Malaya, in WW2, they requisition the estate. Marimuthu dies and Parvathi is forced to accept the protection of the Japanese general who has robbed her of her home. For the first time, she experiences passion. And gradually, her sworn enemy becomes the lover she has always yearned for. About the Author Rani Manicka’s first novel, The Rice Mother, won the South East Asia and South Pacific Region Commonwealth Writers’ Prize, has been translated into 22 languages, and received international acclaim....
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Touching Earth
THE BALINESE TWINS Beautiful and exotic, they exchange an island paradise for the shabby squalor of London, and innocence for corruption. THE SICILIAN- Ricky Delgado strikes a devils bargain with a blood goddess: Build my temple and bring me the souls of damaged people, and you will see what rewards I give. THE COURTESAN Elizabeth makes her living from mens desire. With a flick of the switch in her head, she feels nothing: no pain, no hate, no sorrow, no joy. THE ARTIST Anis takes to painting as an outlet for his rage. His artists eye knows his subjects before they know themselves, and he paints them all, a gallery of broken people. Can they escape the deadly web of decadence and sin?
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The Rice Mother
Grains of rice stick to her body but time will not touch her. She is the keeper of dreams... The Tiger - Lakshmi, the fierce matriarch whose thwarted ambitions turn her cruel. Would she destroy all she sought to love? The Enchanted Twins - They stood and stared at the terrible trick fate played on them. The Princess Bride - Relentlessly wooed, callously discarded, she consoles herself with magic charms and sweet oblivion. The Great-Granddaughter - The Rice Mother's true heir, who weaves together the silken strands of the family's deeply buried secrets as it spans the twentieth century.