Isaac Williams, twelve-year-old son of American doctors at a mission hospital in Java, Indonesia, is certain that his friendship with Ismail Sutanto is as solid and enduring as the majestic flame tree in the yard. But the haven of their small world is shattered when a fundamentalist Islamic organization begins to threaten the hospital. Terrorists infiltrate, the State Department orders an evacuation, bombs ex-plode, and Isaac is taken hostage. The experience embitters Isaac. He knows that he should forgive those who have hurt him, yet he doesn't think that he can. His life is changed forever, but will it be forever crippled by his bitterness? Set against the backdrop of September 11, 2001, The Flame Tree is a fierce novel of friendship, faith, and forgiveness. Richard Lewis tells a story that is at once timely and timeless, one that has the power to move hearts and open eyes.

Based on a little-known true story, from award-winning author Siobhan Daiko comes a tale of love and survival against all the odds set in Hong Kong at the start of the Pacific War. In the spring of 1939, dashing young William Burton and the beautiful Constance Han set sail from London on the same ocean liner to Hong Kong. Romance blossoms while they enjoy games of deck quoits and spend sultry tropical evenings dancing under the stars. Connie is intrigued by Will’s talent for writing poetry, and she offers to give him Cantonese lessons to help him with his new job— a cadet in the colonial service. But once in Hong Kong, Connie is constrained by filial duty towards her Eurasian parents, and their wish for her to marry someone from her own background. She can't forget Will however, and arranges to meet him in secret under the magnificent canopy of a flame of the forest tree— where she fulfills her promise to teach him to speak Chinese. Before too long, trouble looms as Japanese forces gather on the border between Hong Kong and mainland China. Will joins a commando group tasked with operating behind enemy lines, and Connie becomes involved in the fight against local fifth columnists. When war breaks out, they find themselves drawn into a wider conflict than their battle against prejudice. Can they survive and achieve a future together? Or do forces beyond their control keep them forever apart? Perfect for readers of Dinah Jefferies, Ann Bennett and Victoria Hislop Pre order now at new release price, which will rise soon after publication!

Jasmine Lian left Malaysia behind when she was eighteen and won a place at Oxford. Since then she’s led a golden life: youngest ever partner in one of the most prestigious law firms in London, poised for success in every area. Then one of her clients, construction firm Jordan Cardale, bids for the grandest, most visionary project in Asia: the futuristic Titiwangsa University, a complete town and campus in the rainforest-covered hills of Malaysia. Jordan Cardale wants to win that contract. By any means necessary. Jasmine, already struggling with the magnetic hold of her native Malaysia, is forced to choose between old life and new, East and West, right and wrong. The Flame Tree offers a vivid snapshot of a fast-developing Malaysia, of moral choices and a woman’s search for her cultural identity.

“Patel follows up her 2013 debut, Teatime for the Firefly, with this soulful prequel that offers compelling and devastating details of life in India.” —Kirkus Reviews 1870s India. In a tiny village where society is ruled by a caste system and women are defined solely by marriage, young Biren Roy dreams of forging a new destiny. When his mother suffers the fate of widowhood—shunned by her loved ones and forced to live in solitary penance—Biren devotes his life to effecting change. Biren’s passionate spirit blossoms as wildly as the blazing flame trees of his homeland. With a law degree, he goes to work for the government to pioneer academic equality for girls. But in a place governed by age-old conventions, progress comes at a price, and soon Biren becomes a stranger among his own countrymen. Just when his vision for the future begins to look hopeless, he meets Maya, the independent-minded daughter of a local educator, and his soul is reignited. It is in her love that Biren finally finds his home, and in her heart that he finds the hope for a new world. “Patel skillfully uses the culture and customs of . . . India as a fascinating framework for an unforgettable story of love and loss, hope and change . . . that will stay with readers long after they turn the last page.” —Booklist (starred review) “Entranced me from the very first page . . . Patel’s lyrical writing infuses Flame Tree Road with powerful imagery.” —Historical Novel Society

In an open cart Elspeth Huxley set off with her parents to travel to Thika in Kenya. As pioneering settlers, they built a house of grass, ate off a damask cloth spread over packing cases, and discovered—the hard way—the world of the African. With an extraordinary gift for detail and a keen sense of humor, Huxley recalls her childhood on the small farm at a time when Europeans waged their fortunes on a land that was as harsh as it was beautiful. For a young girl, it was a time of adventure and freedom, and Huxley paints an unforgettable portrait of growing up among the Masai and Kikuyu people, discovering both the beauty and the terrors of the jungle, and enduring the rugged realities of the pioneer life.

Includes eleven stories about the relatives and friends that were part of the author's childhood in Cuba.

Offering rare insight to Chamorro and Carolinian cultures, this book contains legends, poems, folklore, history, traditions, rhymes and riddles, and scary stories collected from the elders and the youth of the Marianas Islands.

In her most experimental work to date, Karla Marrufo Huchim explores universal themes with appreciable specificity: loneliness, family angst, memory loss—from a perspective belonging singularly to a native of the Yucatán Peninsula. Mayo’s unnamed narrator is an older woman, isolated in her domestic life, who is both suffering from memory loss and intent on recounting the lives of three generations of her family. The Yucatán culture and community that Marrufo Huchim describes through her narrator’s fine but faltering mind will be foreign but not fetishized for American readers.

This wide range of letters reminds us of Judith Wright's deep engagement with life, her love of the world (and of friends), and the fine fury that led her to battle so courageously on the world's behalf.

This is the story of a man who has spent a lifetime avoiding confrontation, and who now find himself in a mediator's role, between a dictatorship and rebel armies fighting for survival, all the whole concerned for the safety of his loved one.