The speech of angels - Sharon Maas

Another wonderful, exotic saga from the author of Of Marriageable Age and Peacocks Dancing.

Jyothi is growing up on the streets of Bombay when she is rescued by an affluent Western couple, their contribution to the starving of India. But she soon finds adapting to the orderly, middle-class English way of life, to school, and to rules and regulations hard. She feels a misfit.

But then, by chance, it is discovered that she has a rare musical talent. Words might never be easy but music flows from her. The delicate girl, with her extraordinary looks and her unique talent , takes the world by storm. And the rootless Indian waif, Jyothi, becomes the international superstar, Jade.

But she - and her family - discover the burdens of fame too, and Jyothi becomes torn between the urge to re-find her original roots and wanting to become that western girl, with that lifestyle, those men, those values. And running through her mind is the vision of a high, light room, looking out over green hills, a man's clear, candid gaze with the memory of a music of enchantment.

The Speech of Angels, set in India, Germany and Britain, is a moving, emotional story of a remarkable girl, her loves and life, which looks at not only at the price of fame, particularly for a child-star, but at the pleasures and pitfalls of adapting across cultures and continents. Sharon Maas, whose writing is compared by many to Isabelle Allende's, has written her most magical book to date.