The Swap

Four women know nothing about each other and live cocooned in their individual worlds. Until one day they're forced to reckon with shocking truths they never imagined! Their desires haunt them, provoke them and make them fight to choose new paths in their lives. Will these women survive their stories of passion, betrayal and pain? Best-selling author and film writer Madhuri Banerjee brings to you a new romantic thriller that interweaves varied stories of women and their passions, to show us how all relationships ultimately crash into each other.

Thirty-four-year-old Ladoo, a simple middle-class divorcée from Rishikesh, wants only one thing from life - a baby. She eats gondh halwa, drinks badam milk, and takes folic acid to stop her ticking biological clock and become the world’s most fertile woman. When an accidental meeting with a gynaecologist reveals that her ‘eggs are drying up’ and finding a sperm donor is her last chance of having a child, Ladoo races against time to find the right baby daddy, whose kundali matches her.

It’s the mid-’90s. Studious, smart and sincere, Veda harbours big dreams for the future. But her parents arrange a marriage for her, and the 20-year-old discovers she has no say in the matter. Forced to leave behind an idyllic life in the hill town of Joshimath - filled with conversations and pleasurable times with her siblings and her best friend, the handsome Suraj - she puts aside her ambitions and moves into a flat in Pune with an indifferent husband and a mother-in-law from hell. Though brought up to be quiet and obedient, Veda chafes at the meaninglessness of her existence.

Hugh Quarshie reads the extraordinary autobiography of Solomon Northup. His harrowing true story, first published in 1853, was a key factor in the national debate over slavery prior to the American Civil War, significantly changing public opinion on the topic of abolition. It tells the horrifying tale of Solomon Northup, an educated, free black man living with his wife and children in New York State, whose life takes an appalling turn when he is kidnapped, drugged and sold into slavery.

Kaveri is 30; single; knows seven languages; is an interpreter by profession; has read all the books about men and how to get a date. Yet she has not been able to figure out the language of love. Since the the one great love of her life has eluded her for 30 years and might never show up, she decides to take matters into her own hands. On her 30th birthday, she makes a resolution - love or no love, she is going to lose her virginity. Life, however, has other plans! 

A best seller on both sides of the Atlantic, Fool's Gold is a key commentary on the causes of the recent financial crisis. Taking readers back to the invention of credit-derivative obligations (CDOs) at J. P. Morgan in 1994, and the subsequent exponential growth of that market, Tett explains how credit derivatives seemed a win-win for the financial world, freeing up capital, increasing profits, and diversifying risk.

Prisha Khatri is a regular college graduate, focused on her career, desperate to finally move out of her parents’ house...and freshly dumped by her successful fiancé. When she lands a job at a prestigious media house, she’s glad to have something to take her mind off her heartbreak. What she doesn’t expect is to be landed on a business trip with a famously fiery reporter Rajesh Lagheri. He’s travelling to a business conference for a story and doesn’t seem impressed by her involvement. But as soon as they’re out of the office, things change.

When Catherine left London for the US with her husband, James, to introduce her family to their newborn son, she could not have envisaged how that trip would end. Catherine would find herself in an involuntary psych ward in New Jersey, separated from her husband and child, unable to understand who she was, and how she had got there.

Eight-year-old orphan Beth Harmon is quiet, sullen, and by all appearances unremarkable. That is, until she plays her first game of chess. Her senses grow sharper, her thinking clearer, and for the first time in her life she feels herself fully in control. By the age of 16, she's competing for the US Open championship. But as Beth hones her skills on the professional circuit, the stakes get higher, her isolation grows more frightening, and the thought of escape becomes all the more tempting.

It's a story you think you know: the age-old tale of "star-cross'd lovers"; two families at war; a romance, so pure and absolute, fated for a tragic end. It's a story so thoroughly embedded in our culture, and so frequently retold. Yet, nothing captures the spark, the possibility, and the surprise of Shakespeare's work quite like this....

Puja - 19, confused, energetic, fiery. Her philosophy: life is complicated and only super achievers have it figured out. Her strict mother sends her to a rural location in Kerala to spend her summer vacation doing volunteer work. Arush - 20, studious, careful, shy. Born and raised in Britain, he is elated when he gets an opportunity to spend 12 weeks in India, a place his parents are from and one to which he has never been. When Puja and Arush meet, their stark differences are obvious to each other. 

Tech entrepreneur Mukesh Bansal has been a lifelong student of human performance optimisation. He has studied the science behind it and worked closely with high performers across business, sports and entertainment to understand what it takes to transcend apparent limitations and achieve true potential. 

We tend to tiptoe around the role of power in management and fail to openly acknowledge how the animal desire to dominate often destroys the best of organizations. Critics tend to see power as a negative thing. But power is a critical tool that affects the implementation of any idea. Any attempt to restrain it with rules results in domestication and resentment and fails to energize the organization. Leaders often equate themselves with lions and indulge their desire to dominate when, in fact, the point of leadership is to be secure enough to outgrow the lion within us.

Shruti and Aman were once inseparable. Theirs was a love that would last forever and more. Then, out of the blue, Shruti left Aman. A devastated Aman moved abroad in the hope of forgetting Shruti and to heal. Shruti married Rishabh. Now Aman is back in India and looking for a fresh start. But he is still haunted by memories of his love. Can he ever break free from it? His head tells him to move on, to find love with Anjali, but his heart won't listen. No matter what he does, Shruti's shadow looms large. Can there be a happily ever after for any of them?

I’ve got a big...ego and an even bigger bank account. That’s pretty much where my bio ends. I don’t need to say anything else. I’ve just sold 99% of women on going home with me. Do I sound like a jerk to you? That’s because I am. It works for me just fine. Or at least it did. Until I met her. Books talk about sparks flying. Screw that. With her, it was like emergency flares mixed with jet fuel. Or maybe just straight up napalm. Only one problem. She wouldn’t tell me her name or her number when she disappeared from the hotel room after the hottest night of my life.