The Kashmir Shawl

Description

For fans of The Tea-Planter's Wife and Victoria Hislop comes a gripping story of doomed love and secrets in 1940s Kashmir. Newlywed Nerys Watkins leaves rural Wales in 1938 to accompany her missionary husband on a posting to India. In the city of Srinagar, the British live on carved wooden houseboats and dance and gossip as if there is no war. But life becomes darker when the men are sent away to fight. Nerys is caught up in a dangerous friendship, one that changes her forever. Years later, when Mair Ellis clears out her father's house, she finds an antique shawl with a lock of child's hair wrapped up in its folds. Tracing her grandparents' roots back to Kashmir, Mair uncovers a story of great love and great sacrifice.

Rosie Thomas is the author of a number of celebrated novels, including the bestsellers Sun at Midnight, Iris and Ruby and Constance. Once she was established as a writer and her children were grown, she discovered a love of travelling and mountaineering. She has climbed in the Alps and the Himalayas, competed in the Peking to Paris car rally, spent time on a tiny Bulgarian research station in Antarctica and travelled the silk road through Asia. She lives in London.

'A spellbinding tale. Beautifully written, honest and compassionate' Daily Express 'An epic tale...A complicated entanglement of family secrets, love during wartime and dangerous liaisons. For fans of Maggie O'Farrell' Red 'A superbly written novel, marvellously descriptive and especially evocative of the war years . . . a gorgeous treat' Choice 'Thomas' portrayal of a young wife struggling to cope with life in wartime Kashmir, her husband's indifference to her and her attraction to a charismatic mountaineer is beautifully written, touching and believable' The Daily Express 'A superbly researched and vivid evocation of wartime Kashmir and Ladakh' Daily Mail