'Take off your clothes I want to see you' Karam said.Just a few words, spoken like a caress made Sarna start wondering. Where did he learn such new and passionate techniques?When Sarna Singh leaves the lustrous green hills of Uganda for England, streets of cramped old houses were not what she was expecting. Husband Karam has been seduced by the historical feel of the city of London. Sarna, however, is convinced they have moved to England so he can visit his secret London l...

It's a hot, crowded train. Helen Summers is on her way to see her sister Jill to tell her an awful secret. Another passenger, Kerm, is on his way back from his grandfather's funeral.They are strangers, jammed against each other in a crowded carriage. Noisy school kids fill the train - and three of them are about to cause a whole heap of trouble. In the chaos, Helen and Kerm are thrown together in a way they never expected.Catching a train? Read Strangers on the 16:02

‘A brave and beautiful exploration into food, race, memory and the very meaning of life. I read it greedily - and so will you’ Meera Sodha, author of Fresh IndiaThe dinner table, among friends, is where the best conversations take place – talk about the world, religion, politics, culture, love and cooking. In the same way, Be My Guest is a conversation about all these things, mediated through the sharing of food. We live in a world where some have too much and oth...

An epic Romeo and Juliet for the 21st centuryIn a bustling London café, Anil, now a famous architect, sits waiting for Lina. It is years since he last laid eyes on her, the love of his life.Lina is running for the train - punctuality has never been her strength. After all this time she cannot be late to meet Anil.Together, they think back to tragedies both personal and political, betrayals large and small. A past played out across three con...

‘A brave and beautiful exploration into food, race, memory and the very meaning of life. I read it greedily - and so will you’ Meera Sodha, author of Fresh IndiaThe dinner table, among friends, is where the best conversations take place – talk about the world, religion, politics, culture, love and cooking. In the same way, Be My Guest is a conversation about all these things, mediated through the sharing of food. We live in a world where some have too much and oth...

The German word Freiraum, literally translated, means free room. Freiraum is more than just physical space though, it is also a mental state of creativity and freedom. In 1929 Virginia Woolf argued for the necessity of a "room of one’s own" for women writers: Freiraum, both literal and figurative, to think and to create. Almost a century later, having a private room is still a privilege, not only but especially for women. A virus knowing no boundaries or borders emphasized this inequality,...

Bestselling author Jean Sasson tells the dramatic true story of a young woman caught up in Saddam Hussein's genocide of the Kurdish people of Iraq.One morning Joanna, a young bride living in the Kurdish mountains of Iraq, was surprised to see dead birds drop silently out of the clear sky. They were followed by sinister canisters falling to the ground, bringing fear and death.It was 1987, and Saddam Hussein had ordered his cousin 'Chemical Ali' to bombard Jo...

Jill loves her little brother, Jack. She understands what he's thinking, which is just as well because Jack won't speak.There are plenty of things Jill doesn't understand though. Why is her mum dumping her and Jack in the country? Why did her dad leave and she's not allowed to talk about it? She doesn't know why her aunt and uncle give her and Jack strange looks, or why they're being talked about in the village.With a local country boy Jill decides to find out what's going ...

Mayada was born into a powerful Iraqi family. One grandfather fought alongside Lawrence of Arabia. The other is acclaimed as the first true Arab nationalist. Her uncle was Prime Minister for nearly forty years, her mother an important politician. When Saddam Hussein and his Ba'ath party seized power, and instituted his reign of terror, Mayada found herself alone in Baghdad, a divorced parent of two children, earning a meagre living printing brochures. Until one morning in August 1999 she w...

After the recent success of Princess, More Tears to Cry the Princess Al-Saud and Jean Sasson are collaborating on this new book to bring readers up to date not only with the Princess and her family but the stories and experiences of characters who formed the focus of the last book: Dr Meena - the woman who helps abused women to heal and fight for their rights, and Fatima, the mother of twin daughters who, once abused and abandoned by her family, now works for the Princess in one o...

Timeless family drama from the best-selling author of Tuppence to Cross the Mersey. With over 3 million copies sold around the world, Helen Forrester’s heart-warming and gripping fiction, set in Liverpool during the Depression, continues to move readers.Life in a Liverpool tenement block is a grim struggle for Martha Connelly, who works hard every day to protect her family from hunger and disease.When rumours of war reach the neighbourhood in 1938, it becomes clear that lif...

When Jean Sasson’s book Princess: Life Behind the Veil in Saudi Arabia was published, it became an immediate international bestseller. It sold to 43 countries and spent 13 weeks on The New York Times bestseller list. Now, in this long-awaited, compelling new book, Sasson and the Princess ‘Sultana’ return to tell the world what it means to be a Saudi woman today.Through advances in education and with access to work, Saudi women are breaking through the barriers; th...