Best Selling Books by RUMER GODDEN

A New York Times–bestselling novel of the lives, loves, and foibles of five generations of a British family occupying a manor house in Wales. For nearly one hundred and fifty years the Quin family has lived at China Court, their magnificent estate in the Welsh countryside. The land, gardens, and breathtaking home have been maintained, cherished, and ultimately passed along—from Eustace and Adza in the early nineteenth century to village-girl-turned-lady-of-the-manor Ripsie Quin, her children, and her granddaughter, Tracy, in the twentieth. Brilliantly intermingling the past and the present, China Court is a sweeping family saga that weaves back and forth through time. The story begins at the end, in 1960, with the death of the indomitable Ripsie, whose dream of a life at the grand estate was realized through her marriage to the steadfast Quin brother who loved her—though he wasn''t the one she had always loved. With thrilling literary leaps across the decades, the story of a British dynasty is told in enthralling detail. It is a chronicle of wives and husbands; of mothers, sons, and daughters; of those who could never stray far from the lush grounds of China Court and the outcasts and outsiders who would never truly belong. Bearing comparison to One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez, Rumer Godden''s novel relates the history of a family with sensitivity, wit, compassion, and a compelling touch of magical realism. A family''s loves, pains, triumphs, and scandals are laid bare, forming an intricate tapestry of heart-wrenching humanity, in a remarkable work of fiction from one of the most acclaimed British novelists of the twentieth century. This ebook features an illustrated biography of the author including rare images from the Rumer Godden Literary Estate.

“Once upon a time there was a little mouse house. It was like a doll’s house, but not for dolls, for mice.” Not proper mice, but a flannel He-Mouse and She-Mouse with beady eyes and bristle whiskers who stand quite still, propped on their hind legs in the sitting room. Mary knows real mice run and scamper, and disappointed with her new gift, she puts the mouse house away in her room. Meanwhile, down in the basement, a real mouse named Bonnie has been jostled out of her woefully inadequate flowerpot home by her older brothers and sisters. Overlooked by her harried parents and desperate for shelter, Bonnie ventures upstairs and finds the mouse house. And before too long what was a miniature make-believe house becomes a marvelously messy home for proper mice who know how to play, much to everyone’s delight.

In Rumer Godden''s Coromandel Sea Change Blaise and Mary arrive at Patna Hall, a hotel on India’s shimmering Coromandel coast, to spend part of their honeymoon. Patna Hall is as beautiful and timeless as India itself, ruled over firmly and wise by proprietor Auntie Sanni. For Mary it feels strangely like home. In a week that will change the young couple’s destiny, election fever grips the Southern Indian state and Mary falls under the spell of the people, the country – and Krishnan, godlike candidate for the Root and Flower party . . .

A tiny doll lives an adventurous life in a little boy''s pocket and as a member of a gang of boys.

Kizzy is a diddakoi or half gypsy whose life becomes a nightmare for her after her Gran dies and she is violently bullied at school.

The Godden sisters "have written of five years in their early lives when they were sent back to India to escape the bombs of W.W.I. They recall their lives in the village and its environs in what is now East Pakistan." Library J.

A house mouse who thinks there must be more to life than looking for food and caring for her family befriends a lonely, caged dove.

Everyone is delighted when Lottie gains entry to the Royal Ballet School but she is dismayed when she realises that there will be noone to care for her new dog.___k_____

Una and her younger sister Hal have been abruptly summoned to live in New Delhi by their diplomat father Sir Edward Gwithiam. From the first meeting with their new tutor and companion, the beautiful Eurasian Alix Lamont, Una senses a hidden motive to their presence. But through the pain of the months to come, the poetry and logic of India do not leave Una untouched. And it begins with the feather, a promise of something genuine and precious . . . In The Peacock Spring Rumer Godden evokes the magic of an India she knows so well – and all the bitter sweetness of loyalty and love. And in the preface she explains how this perennially popular novel came to be written.

Ghosts past, present, and future haunt an old London house in this masterful work of fiction from a New York Times Bestselling author. ''A genius for storytelling'' EVENING STANDARD ''One of our best and most original novelists'' PHILIP HENSHER ''Her craftsmanship is always sure . . . pure, delicate, and gently witty'' NEW YORK TIMES 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 Lark Ingoldsby. Orphaned by a train crash, Lark was taken in by the Danes as an adoptive daughter but soon found herself caught in a web of sibling rivalry, love and attrition. Selina Dane, racked with jealousy, sets out to destroy Lark''s dreams of love. When Grizel falls for Pax Masterson, a wounded airman, Rollo urges her to seize her chance for happiness, as he was not able to. A century of a family''s history remains alive and vibrant within these walls, the events that defined their lives unfolding over and over again. But that living history is not ending quite yet, for the war is bringing a stranger from America to Number 99 Wiltshire Place to leave her indelible mark on it. A different kind of ghost story, Rumer Godden''s poignant, stylistically brilliant A Fugue in Time is a story rich in wonder, imagination, and heart - a favourite for the many devoted fans of the bestselling author of Black Narcissus and In This House of Brede. A passionate story of romance and tragedy also inspired the classic film Enchantment starring David Niven and Teresa Wright.

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

The Stories In This Exquisite Collection Move Between The Timeless India Of Fable And The India Of Today. Condition Good

A doll named Candy Floss is very happy serving as Jack''s lucky charm at his stall at the fair, until a spoiled rich girl steals her.

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

A young girl and her pony befriend a dour farmer on the Scottish border.

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.