London, 1957. In a bid to erase her past, Sophie Schofield accepts a proposal from ambitious British diplomat Lucien Grainger. When he is posted to New Delhi, into the glittering circle of ex-pat society, old wounds begin to break open as Sophie is confronted with the memory of her first, forbidden love and its devastating consequences. This is not the India she fell in love with ten years before in a maharajah's palace, the India that ripped out her heart as Partition tore the country in two.

And so begins the unravelling of an ill-fated marriage, setting in motion a catastrophic chain of events that will bring her face to face with a past she has tried so desperately to forget and a future she must fight for. This is a tender story of love, loss of innocence and the aftermath of a terrible decision no one knew how to avoid.
 

Born in the sixties to an Indian mother and an English jazz musician father, Alison McQueen grew up in London and worked in advertising for twenty years before retiring to write full time. In 2006 she was selected from an impressive longlist to join The Writers' Circle - a group of 8 top writers chosen to be groomed by the UK film industry as the new generation of British screenwriters. An award-winning blogger, she is also the author of a series of popular novels (published by Macmillan) under a pseudonym. Alison lives in a quiet English village with her husband and two daughters. Her novel, The Secret Children, was selected by The Independent for their alternative 2012 Booker list.