Kamila Shamsie

Maryam and Zahra. In 1988 Karachi, two fourteen-year-old girls are a decade into their friendship, sharing in-jokes, secrets and a love for George Michael. As Pakistan’s dictatorship falls and a woman comes to power, the world suddenly seems full of possibilities. Elated by the change in the air, they make a snap decision at a party. That night, everything goes wrong, and the two girls are powerless to change the outcome. Zahra and Maryam. 

In present-day London, two influential women remain bound together by loyalties, disloyalties, and the memory of that night, which echoes through the present in unexpected ways. Now both have power; and both have very different ideas of how to wield it… Their friendship has always felt unbreakable; can it be undone by one decision?

Fourteen years after the disappearance of her fearless, beautiful mother, Samina, Aasmaani clings onto the dream of her return, refusing to believe she is dead.

Now grown up and living in the bustling chaos and rich culture of modern-day Karachi, she receives longed-for proof that her mother is still alive, and the seed of her hope germinates.

In her search for the truth of what really happened all those years ago, an unexpected romance will flower and the questions that have plagued her for years will be answered.

Summer, 1915. Young Englishwoman Vivian Rose Spencer and twenty-year-old Pathan, Qayyum Gul meet on a train to Peshawar, unaware that a connection is about to be forged between their lives - one that will reveal itself fifteen years later when anti-colonial resistance, an ancient artefact and a mysterious woman will bring them together again.

Isma is free. After years spent raising her twin siblings in the wake of their mother's death, she is finally studying in America, resuming a dream long deferred. But she can't stop worrying about their brother, Parvaiz, who's disappeared in pursuit of his own dream: to prove himself to the dark legacy of the jihadist father he never knew...