Secrets and Lies

(Paperback)

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Description

The Secret History meets Daddys Girls as four old schoolfriends reunite after fifteen years in this sizzling blockbuster.
You can't run away from your past

Anita, Zeba, Bubbles and Sam have a friendship that spans 20 years a friendship born out of their years at a private girls school in Delhi in the early Nineties. Beautiful, intelligent and secretive, they were the top clique; the girls that everyone wanted to impress until the arrival of a newcomer to the school. 15-year-old Lily D'Souza is beautiful, gifted and acerbic and instantly threatens their superiority.

Now, Anita, Sam and Bubbles live in London. Bubbles is the pampered but bored wife of a billionaire, Anita is a top journalist working for the BBC, whilst Sam tries hard to be a trophy wife for her corporate lawyer husband. Zeba remained in India, and now lives a life of unimaginable luxury as the world's reigning Bollywood queen.

Called back to India for a reunion by their beloved school principal Mrs Lamb, the women must confront a secret that has haunted their adult lives. Lily's body was found on the night of their school prom and, for twenty years, the open verdict has shielded the fact that they may have had a hand in her death.

But as they reunite in Delhi to find out the truth about what really happened that night, will their friendship stand the strain Or are some things better left unsaid

Reviews

Praise for Secrets and Lies:

Truly captivating
Mirror

A top summer read.
Closer

Misra delves into the lives of British-Indian women with a certain candour and sensitivity.
Eastern Eye

Author Bio

Jaishree Misra grew up in India, moved to the UK in 1990 and has recently moved back to India with her husband and daughter. She has an MA in English Honours from Kerala University and subsequently acquired two post-graduate diplomas, the first from the University of London in Special Education and the second from the London College of Printing in Broadcast Journalism. She has worked with children and teenagers who have special needs, in the department of social services at Buckinghamshire, as a local radio journalist at the BBC and has written and presented column pieces for Radio 4 programmes such as 'Home Truths' and 'Word of Mouth'. For the past six years she has worked as a film classifier at the British Board of Film Classification in Soho. Her first book ('Ancient Promises') was published by Penguin UK and enjoyed good publicity - interviews and reviews appearing in the Times, the Times Literary Supplement, the Independent, Daily Telegraph, Daily Express, Good Housekeeping, Saga Magazine, Time-Out UK, the Australian Age etc. Additionally, Jaishree was interviewed on BBC World Television, on a Channel 5 news programme, participated in Radio 4's 'Excess Baggage' programme and went on to write numerous column pieces for Radio 4 and 'Outlook', a leading news magazine in India. 'Ancient Promises' has been translated into German, Greek and Malayalam and became a major seller in India, staying on the top of best-seller lists in Indian newspapers and magazines for several weeks. Excerpts from the book have also been included in two Penguin anthologies: 'The Fiction Collection: 20 Years of Penguin India' and 'Where the Rain is Born: Writings about Kerala'. Jaishree wrote two further novels commissioned by Penguin India, alongside a Little Book of Romance. The first is a comedy of manners set in Delhi ('Accidents Like Love & Marriage') and the second ('Afterwards') is a story of bereavement and loss that again went straight onto all Indian best-seller lists in the first week of its publication. In 2004, Jaishree started to research and write a historical novel ('Rani'), set in British India and based on the real life story of Rani Lakshmibai of Jhansi who fought the British Army in the great uprising of 1857. The book was banned by the Uttar Pradesh government in India but went on to sell well, with film rights being sold subsequently too. In 2008, Jaishree was offered a three-book deal by the Avon imprint of Harper Collins in the UK. The first of these books ('Secrets & Lies') was published in June 2009 and went onto Bookseller magazine's Heatseeker's list in the second week of its publication. A 6-city publicity tour is due to take place in August 2009 across India.