Rosie Thomas

Newlywed Nerys Watkins leaves rural Wales for the first time in her life, to accompany her husband on a missionary posting to India. As war engulfs Europe, the Watkins are in remote Ladakh, high up in the Himalayas. Nerys is lonely, but she makes a glamorous new friend, Myrtle McMinn, who introduces her to the lakeside city of Srinagar. Here, in the exquisite heart of Kashmir, the British live on carved wooden houseboats and dance, flirt and gossip as if there is no war. With her husband still up in Ladakh, Nerys has a new-found freedom to explore, and it is here that she first meets Swiss mountaineer Rainer Stamm.But as war draws ever closer, life in Srinagar becomes less frivolous. With their husbands away, Nerys and Myrtle are caught up in a dangerous friendship with the younger, vulnerable Caroline Bowen. And by the time the men return life has changed beyond measure for all of them.Years later, when Mair Ellis clears out her father's house, she finds an exquisite antique shawl, woven from the finest pashm wool in all the shades of lake water and mountain skies. Wrapped within its folds is a lock of child's hair. Tracing her grandparents' roots back to India and Kashmir, Mair attempts to unlock the secrets of their past in a quest that will change her life forever

The Kashmir Shawl

In late 19th century London, wealthy artist's model Eliza puts her heart, and her life, on the line when she falls into the company of an enigmatic showman called Devil; Carlo Bonomi, an ill-tempered dwarf with a penchant for magic and illusion; and the even more mysterious Jasper Button.

A Novel

The Illusionists

An epic love story and adventure set against the stunning backdrop of Antarctica. Alice Peel is a geologist. She believes in observation and proof. But now she stands alone on the deck of a rickety Chilean ship as a stark landscape reveals itself. Instead of the familiar measurable world, everything that lies ahead of her is unknown and unpredictable. Six weeks earlier her life was comfortably unfolding in an Oxford summer. Then, with her relationship suddenly in pieces, she accepted an invitation to join a group working at the end of the earth: Antarctica. James Rooker is a man on the run. He's been running since his childhood in New Zealand. Now, there is nowhere further to go. He has taken a job working on the same small Antarctic research station. Alice discovers an ice-blue and silver world, lit by sunlight. Nothing has prepared her for the beauty of it, or the claustrophobia of a tiny base shared with eight men and one other woman. The isolation wipes out everyone's past, and tension crackles in the air. But there is a jolt of recognition between Alice and Rooker that is like nothing she has ever known. life forever ! if she survives.

Sun at Midnight

A gripping, exotic and epic tale for fans of Dinah Jeffries and Victoria Hislop

Iris and Ruby

From the bestselling author of the phenomenally successful The Kashmir Shawl

Constance, a musician, composer & arranger of other people's music, has made a new life for herself in Bali. On hearing the news of her sister's serious illness, the last thing she wants is to leave the beaches & relaxed lifestyle & return to London. Especially as before leaving London, Constance had fallen in love with her sister's husband.

Constance

Miranda Meadowe decides a lonely widowhood in her crumbling country house is not for her. She invites five of her oldest friends to come & join her, & stave off the prospect of old age. When building work reveals an Iron Age burial site of a tribal queen, the outside world descends on them, & the isolation of the group is breached.

Lovers and Newcomers

For fans of The Tea-Planter’s Wife and Victoria Hislop comes a gripping story of doomed love and secrets in 1940s Kashmir.

The story of a woman whose passion to succeed in business and at love bring difficult choices and unforeseen consequences.

A Woman of Our Times

Illusionists

An enchanting, Dickensian tale of desire, magic and the Victorian theatre, perfect for fans of Sarah Waters, The Night Circus and Water for Elephants--from the beloved and bestselling author of The Kashmir Shawl London, 1885--a challenging place for a young, beautiful woman of limited means. But Eliza is modern before her time. She longs for more than the stifling, if respectable, conventionality of marriage, children, domestic drudgery. Through her work as an artist's model, she meets the magnetic and irascible Devil Wix--a born showman whose dream is to run his own theatre company. Devil's right-hand man is Carlo Bonomi, an ill-tempered dwarf who is a talented magician and illusionist. Carlo and Devil clash at every turn and it falls to Eliza to broker an uneasy peace between them. Jasper Button, a mild-mannered family man at heart, is a gifted artist and the unlikely final member of the motley crew. With self-styled impresario Devil at the helm of the Palmyra Theatre, acrobats and illusionists astonish audiences with their death-defying stunts and the magic of mysterious new inventions--like electricity. Backstage, secret romances, box-office dramas and power struggles inevitably simmer, and intermittently boil over. And as Eliza is drawn into their seductive, precarious and exciting bohemian world, she risks not only her heart, but also her life . . . Framed by Rosie Thomas's rich portrayal of the rapidly changing world of late-Victorian England, The Illusionists takes readers on an unforgettable journey with a cast of passionate, larger-than-life figures who are inextricably linked through their shared love of the stage and the theatre, and who will make you laugh and break your heart.

The unexpected arrival of her willful teenage granddaughter, Ruby, brings life and disorder to 82-year-old Iris Black's old house in Cairo. Ruby, driven by her fraught relationship with her own mother to run away from England, is seeking refuge with the grandmother she hasn't seen for years.An unlikely bond develops between them, as Ruby helps Iris to record her fading memories of the glittering, cosmopolitan Cairo of World War II, and of her one true love--the enigmatic Captain Xan Molyneux--whom she lost to the ravages of conflict.This long-ago love has shaped Iris's life, and, as becomes increasingly apparent, those of her daughter and her granddaughter. And it is to affect them all, again, in ways they could not have imagined.

All My Sins Remembered

A richly textured story of love, loss and the distance between three generations of one family. The unexpected arrival of her wilful teenage granddaughter, Ruby, brings life and disorder to 82-year-old Iris Black's old house in Cairo. Ruby, driven by her fraught relationship with her own mother to run away from England, is seeking refuge with the grandmother she hasn't seen for years. An unlikely bond develops between them, as Ruby helps Iris to record her fading memories of the glittering, cosmopolitan Cairo of World War Two, and of her one true love -- the enigmatic Captain Xan Molyneaux -- whom she lost to the ravages of the conflict. This long-ago love has shaped Iris's life, and, as becomes increasingly apparent, those of her daughter and granddaughter. And it is to affect them all, again, in ways they could not have imagined.

Iris & Ruby

The enchanting sequal to Rosie Thomas's celebrated story of magic and intrigue, The Illusionists.

Daughter of the House

Alice Peel é uma jovem geóloga que tem como filosofia de vida acreditar no que vê. Mas quando a sua última relação termina de forma súbita, pela primeira vez é forçada a avaliar a própria vida, e aceita integrar um grupo de investigação que vai para o fim do mundo: a Antártida. Em vez do mundo familiar a que se habituou, Alice tem diante de si um cenário inóspito, desconhecido e imprevisível. James Rooker é um homem sempre em fuga. Deixando mulheres e amores para trás, chegou ao ponto onde não pode fugir para mais longe. Não há destino que não tenha cumprido a não ser a Antártida, para onde ele irá integrado no mesmo grupo de investigação. Nada havia preparado Alice para a beleza estonteante da Antártida - o isolamento e a solidão anulam o passado de cada um, e a atmosfera vibra de tensão. É na Antártida que irá descobrir algo que mudará a sua vida... se sobreviver.

Sol à Meia-Noite

Olivia Giorgiadis has left her English roots behind. She lives on a tiny Greek island, married to a local man, mother to two small sons. Year on year, island life has followed a peaceful unchanging rhythm. Until now. An earthquake ravages the coast, its force devastating the island. In the aftermath comes a stranger: an Englishwoman, destitute but for the clothes she wears. Olivia welcomes the stranger into her home, the potter's house. But as Kitty melts into the family and the village community, so Olivia begins to sense that her mysterious visitor threatens all she holds dear ...

The Potter's House

Other People's Marriages

From the bestselling author of The Kashmir Shawl. Available on ebook for the first time.

Sunrise

Veninderne Julie og Matti løber hjemmefra i 1955 og ender i swinging London. Udviklingen til voksne kvinder rummer fest, oprør, venskaber, sex, rodløshed og endelig kærligheden til mand og børn

Bad Girls, Good Women

Traces the development of Indian cinema from the 1920s to the mid-1990s, before "Bollywood" erupted onto the world stage. Bombay before Bollywood offers a fresh, alternative look at the history of Indian cinema. Avoiding the conventional focus on India’s social and mythological films, Rosie Thomas examines the subaltern genres of the “magic and fighting films”—the fantasy, costume, and stunt films popular in the decades before and immediately after independence. She explores the influence of this other cinema on the big-budget masala films of the 1970s and 1980s, before “Bollywood” erupted onto the world stage in the mid-1990s. Thomas focuses on key moments in this hidden history, including the 1924 fairy fantasy Gul-e-Bakavali; the 1933 talkie Lal-e-Yaman; the exploits of stunt queen Fearless Nadia; the magical neverlands of Hatimtai and Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp; and the 1960s stunt capers Zimbo and Khilari. She includes a detailed ethnographic account of the Bombay film industry of the early 1980s, centering on the beliefs and fantasies of filmmakers themselves with regard to filmmaking and film audiences, and on-the-ground operations of the industry. A welcome addition to the fields of film studies and cultural studies, the book will also appeal to general readers with an interest in Indian cinema. At the University of Westminster in the United Kingdom,Rosie Thomas is Professor of Film, Faculty of Media, Arts, and Design, Director of the Centre for Research and Education in Arts and Media, and Co-Director of the India Media Centre.

Rosie Thomas

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