Best Selling Books by Rumer Godden

Adolescence.

The disappearance of a majestic Thoroughbred unites a community in 1930s India in “one of the greatest horse books ever written. . . . Moving, and highly original” (Lauren St. John, author of The White Giraffe). In Calcutta, India, John Quillan cares for racehorses belonging to wealthy owners, and Mother Morag, who lives just down the road and leads a group of nuns working with Calcutta’s poor, loves to watch these beautiful animals in action. Now, a new Thoroughbred, Dark Invader, has been shipped from England, rejected after a losing season, in which he didn’t live up to his owner’s expectations. A beautiful creature with rippling muscles and satin skin, Dark Invader is gently handled with love in his new home, and before long, he is poised for victory in the Viceroy Cup, the country’s most famous race. But just days before the event, he disappears—and a desperate effort to find him begins. From Rumer Godden—the award-winning author of such classics as The Greengage Summer and Black Narcissus, as well as a number of beloved children’s books—The Dark Horse is a moving and suspenseful story set in a fascinating historical era.

Two English children travel to Italy to rescue their wayward mother from her lover and save their family in this New York Times–bestselling novel. The lives of the two Clavering children, Hugh and Caddie, have been abruptly upended by the bitter divorce of their parents, British Army colonel Darrell and the formerly solid, dependable Fanny. Their English country home has been abandoned in favor of a London flat, and the fate of their adored pony, Topaz, is in serious question. And it all began the day the internationally renowned movie director, Rob Quillet, came to their small village and stole Fanny’s heart. Now Fanny is gone, whisked off to the north of Italy by her famous filmmaker lover, leaving behind the jagged pieces of her broken family. While Hugh, at fourteen, understands the ways of the adult world better than his twelve-year-old sister, he is fiercely protective of stubborn, rebellious Caddie, who refuses to accept the situation or the hollow sympathy of grown-ups. So together they decide to take drastic action. Traveling alone across Europe, the siblings arrive at Quillet’s pastoral Italian villa overlooking Lake Garda, determined to do battle with the man responsible for the destruction of their family. There can be no peace until they are victorious—and victory will only be achieved when they bring their mother home. A novel that masterfully blends heart, wit, poignancy, and honesty with a breathtaking evocation of the lush Northern Italian countryside, Rumer Godden’s The Battle of Villa Fiorita is another unforgettable reading experience from the New York Times–bestselling author of The River and In This House of Brede. This ebook features an illustrated biography of the author including rare images from the Rumer Godden Literary Estate.

Effect of the arrival of two English airmen on the people of a remote Pacific Island.

After Cat has her four kittens, she has to find suitable homes for them.

When she wins a scholarship to a famous ballet school, Lottie, an orphan reared by the costume mistress for a London ballet company, is torn between her lifelong dream and her love for a puppy.

Sophie, a young English woman with two children, goes to set up home in fabulous Kashmir, finding a tumbled-down house in a valley carpeted with flowers below the Himalayas. Settling down to live there she is blissfully ignorant of the turmoil that her arrival produces. Sophies cook is finally prompted to take action and the consequences of his innocent plotting are catastrophic.

Account of two adolescent girls of an Anglo-Indian family in Bengal.

Grade level: 4, 5, 6, e, i.

Pippa Fane, at seventeen, is the youngest and most recent recruit to the Midland City Ballet. When she is chosen to go on an Italian tour she is delighted, but professional success brings emotional confusion and pain.

Terrible changes occur in the house where Tibby''s mother works, but although Tibby knows something that may make all the difference, she doesn''t feel she can divulge the secret.

A young boy of Cyprus goes to work for the United Nations peace-keeping forces when his donkey becomes their property but refuses to work for them.

This book portrays the enormous diversity of life styles and the wide ranging ethnic differences among the peoples of India.

Four evocative and moving works of fiction set in India from the New York Times–bestselling author of Black Narcissus—including her final novel. Having spent her formative years in colonial India, British novelist Rumer Godden would continue to return to that setting for inspiration throughout her career—from her best known work about five nuns in a Himalayan convent, Black Narcissus, to her final novel, Cromartie vs. the God Shiva. The four novels in this volume each reveal in their own way Godden’s “magical skill in conjuring up with a few suggestive details a veritable panorama of Indian life” (The New York Times). And, like all of Godden’s fiction, they “have one important thing in common: They are beautifully and simply wrought by a woman of depth and sensitivity” (Los Angeles Times). Cromartie vs. the God Shiva: In Godden’s final novel, inspired by a real event, the theft of a precious statuette of the Hindu god Shiva from a hotel in India leads to love, intrigue, death, and legal complications. Even as Sydney Cromartie, the Canadian now in possession of the statue, fights to retain ownership, British barrister Michael Dean is dispatched to Patna Hall on the Coromandel Coast (previously appearing in Godden’s Coromandel Sea Change), where everyone is a suspect, including proprietress Auntie Sanni, to solve the mystery. “A complex tale, fraught with mystery . . . Readers who enjoy far-away cultures will find this tale a treat.” —Library Journal The Lady and the Unicorn: Battling poverty and prejudice, the three “half-caste” daughters of an Englishman and an Indian mother live with their widowed father and “Auntie” in a crumbling mansion in 1930s Calcutta. Tough-minded Belle Lemarchant is determined to improve her lot in life, while her twin, Rosa, looks for escape in romance, and their younger, darker-skinned sibling, Blanche, wanders the halls and grounds, communing with ghosts. A powerful coming-of-age story in a society blinded by caste divisions, Godden’s novel is a heartbreaking human drama. “One of the delights of reading a Rumer Godden novel is the magnetic pull of the exotic settings, affecting readers and characters alike.” —Newsday The Peacock Spring: When Una, fifteen, and her twelve-year-old sister, Halcyon, are summoned from their English boarding school to join their diplomat father in New Delhi, they encounter an exotic new world, racial prejudice, and a calculating Eurasian governess, whose relationship with their father seems troubling in its intimacy. When Una becomes friends with Ravi, a young Indian gardener, their forbidden attraction threatens to end in scandal and disaster. “Ms. Godden . . . has a wonderful way with fictional children, tender and true and never sentimental.” —The New York Times Coromandel Sea Change: With an election coming, business is brisk at Patna Hall, a resort hotel on the lush Coromandel Coast in southern India. Anglo-Indian hotel owner Auntie Sanni has her hands full with Indian politicians, British diplomats, a journalist involved in espionage, a woman of mystery, and an English couple on their honeymoon whose new marriage is strained by their conflicting responses to India. As the nearby Coromandel Sea is teeming with sharks, so is Patna Hall brimming with adultery, blackmail, and intrigue. “[A] sense of timelessness reminiscent of E. M. Forster.” —The Times

"Stephen had not thought that winter would be beautiful in India. He had had a revulsion from the country, all its romance had turned to sordidness, but now the land filled him again with delight. He was thinking of Rosa. "Promise me," she had whispered, "promisme me you won''t go back without me." Mystery pervades this story of Anglo-Indian lifle in a memory-haunted house in old Calcutta, as secret as a sundial in a ruined garden."--Goodreads.com

An illustrated retelling of the legend of Saint Jerome and the lion that he sheltered in his monastery.

As the youngest in the family, Elizabeth is slow and clumsy and always in trouble until she is taken in hand by the Fairy Doll that usually decorates the top of the Christmas tree.

This haunting tale of shame and redemption is the story of Lise Fanshawe, prostitute and brothel manager, murderer and prisoner, and, finally, a Catholic nun in an order dedicated to serving people marginalized by society. An inspiring and convincing conversion story that shows God''s mercy.

For more than half a century, Rumer Godden has been known as one of the finest and subtlest writers of our day (Saturday Review). Now one of her most endearing classics is being reissued for a new generation of readers. China Court is the story of the hours and days of a country house in Wales and five generations of the family who inhabited it.

BY THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING AUTHOR ''One of our best and most captivating novelists'' PHILIP HENSHER ''[Godden] writes with grace and a cheerfully lilting prose'' KIRKUS REVIEWS ''Her craftsmanship is always sure'' NEW YORK TIMES A revered effigy of the God, Shiva, is missing from the Patna Hall Hotel on south India''s exquisite Coromandel coast. Was it stolen, and to whom does it belong? Young lawyer Michael Dean, sent from London to argue the case for the defence, falls under the spell of Artemis, a graceful archaeologist who is staying at the hotel; but she proves as elusive as the mystery of the theft he is working on. Her final novel, Cromartie vs The God Shiva is a magical, evocative exploration of art, love, class and greed set in Godden''s beloved southern India.

Brought up largely in India by unconventional parents, the author came to know the continent intimately. Educated in Britain she returned to India to continue her life. She starts a dance school for local children, marries a charming but weak man and after their abandonment, raises their two children on her own.

In this second autobiography the author describes the progression of her life as she leaves India with her two daughters and settles in London. She tells of her house moves, relationships and writing with characteristic wit and humour.