Rumer Godden

A group of Anglican nuns travel to a remote location in the Himalayas to set up a school and hospital for the local people, only to find themselves increasingly seduced by the sensuality of their surroundings high up in the mountains, and by the local British agent Mr Dean.

For Emily Pool, India is a magical place where she has the freedom to escape her mother's suffocating influence. But as the cracks in Emily's family home are papered over, and the Pools strive to maintain an outward impression of respectability, it is through the Nikolides that Emily discovers that nothing in the town is quite as it seems . . .

Tracy Quinn, daughter of a screen star and raised on film sets around the world, returns to her adored family home, a country house named China Court. Her grandmother's recent death has set in motion events that threaten Tracy's future and the very existence of China Court.

A young London lawyer is sent to India to take the case for the defence when a statue of the God Shiva goes missing. There he falls in love with the elusive Artemis.

The Sisters of Béthanie, a French order of Dominican nuns, dedicate themselves to caring for the outcasts of society - criminals, prostitutes and drug addicts. Lise, an English girl who after the liberation of Paris was employed in one of the city's smartest brothels, and rose to become a successful Madame, finds herself joining the Sisters.

A summer holiday in France for an English family of five children is not the happy time they had expected… and what is the mystery about Mr Elliott?

Leaving her successful career in the Civil Service to join an enclosed order of  Benedictine Nuns, Philippa Talbot must learn to forgive and forget the past.

Sophie, an English ingenue with two children, arrives in Himalayan Kashmir to set up home in a tumbledown cottage. Settling down to live quietly, frugally and peacefully with her new neighbours, she is unaware of the turmoil her arrival provokes as the villagers compete fiercely for her patronage and the unwanted consequences are catastrophic.

Sent back to England to live with her cousins, Nona missed her home in India, but with the help of her two Japanese dolls wishes can come true.

Seventeen-year-old Pippa is one of the many dancers in the Midlands City Ballet chosen to go on an Italian tour. In Venice she attracts the attention of Niccolo, a gondolier, and gradually becomes aware of a more grown-up, complex world.

Tonight is Diwali, the most magical night of the year, but Premlata is desolate - her family is too poor to have lamps.

Harriet is caught between two worlds: her older sister is no longer a playmate, her brother is still a little boy. And the comforting rhythm of her Indian childhood - the sounds of the jute factory, the colourful festivals that accompany each season and the eternal ebb and flow of the river on its journey to the Bay of Bengal - is about to be shattered by a tragic event.

Included here are dramatisations of three of Rumer Godden’s classic tales, as well as a fascinating interview with the renowned author.

Black Narcissus: A group of nuns establishing a remote mission in an old palace in the Himalayas is warned that it is no place for a nunnery. And as the Sisters' tragic destiny unfolds, those prophetic words are soon proved right.

The Greengage Summer: When their mother falls ill during a holiday to France, the Grey children are left to entertain themselves. Over the course of the long, hot summer, they are caught up in an adult world of deception and lies...

The Dark Horse: Set in Calcutta in 1933, this is the story of a thoroughbred racehorse, a jockey seeking a second chance, a shrewd Mother Superior and a miracle - all based on true events.

Grizel Dane, a bold young servicewoman in the US army, arrives at the London home of her great-uncle Sir Rollo Dane seeking refuge from the chaos of wartime. Through the old man, Grizel learns the surprising history of the Dane family and their adoptive daughter Lark Ingoldsby.

Rumer Godden left India with her two daughters in l945 and found England battered by war. Sequel to 'A Time to Dance, No Time to Weep' (2492).

Brought up largely in India, Rumer Godden came to know the continent intimately. In her adolescence, spent chiefly in Britain, she found a vocation. The story of her life after her return to India - starting a dance school for British and Indian children, marriage to a charming but weak man, abandonment, bringing up two children - is an inspiring one.