Books by Meera Syal

Nine-year-old Meena can't wait to grow up and break free from her parents. But, as the daughter of the only Punjabi family in the mining village of Tollington, her struggle for independence is different from most.Meena wants fishfingers and chips, not chapati and dhal; she wants an English Christmas, not the usual interminable Punjabi festivities - but more than anything, she wants to roam the backyards of working-class Tollington with feisty Anita Rutter and her gang.Blonde, cool, aloof, outrageous and sassy, Anita is everything Meena thinks she wants to be. Meena wheedles her way into Anita's life, but the arrival of a baby brother, teenage hormones, impending entrance exams for the posh grammar school and a motorcycling rebel without a future threaten to turn Anita's salad days sour.Anita and Me paints a comic, poignant, compassionate and colourful portrait of village life in the era of flares, power cuts, glam rock, decimalisation and Ted Heath. It is a unique vision of a British childhood in the Seventies, a childhood caught between two cultures, each on the brink of change.

I found it absorbing, witty, joyous and moving...and that's all I really want from a book!' - JO BRAND'Warm and witty' Sunday Times'The gifted Syal does it again' IndpendentHOW FAR WOULD YOU GO TO GET THE LIFE YOU CAN'T HAVE? Shyama, aged forty-eight, has fallen for a younger man.

Contains a sneak preview of Meera Syal's brand new novel, THE HOUSE OF HIDDEN MOTHERSThere's no such thing as a happy ending , is there ...?Sunita - perfect housewife - is married to Akash, but is her marriage what it seems? Chila - warm, loveable - has married with great fanfare the entrepreneur Deepak.