Dimensions
156 x 235 x 31mm
Sent to India to find a husband, Mariana Givens is facing the prospect of returning to Sussex ignominiously single. But the vastness of India has been a revelation. And before she leaves, Mariana is to accompany the Governor-General's party on their journey upcountry to meet, and, they hope, forge an alliance with the Punjab's ageing Maharajah.
Little does she know it, but Mariana is being pulled into the fate of a child whose existence she isn't yet aware of. For 18-month-old Saboor is being held hostage by the capricious Maharajah, who views him as a talisman against encroaching decrepitude. But the Maharajah has no concept of a child's needs and, with his mother poisoned, Saboor is dying from neglect. According to Saboor's grandfather, the visionary Shaikh Waliullah, only the young woman from Sussex can save him.
'A Singular Hostage' is a highly literate and hugely absorbing historical novel; a classic portrayal of the collision of two cultures, exotic, exciting and alive with the richness and strangeness of India.
