THE BLACK NARCISSUS

By Rumer Godden

Synopsis

A group of Anglican nuns travel to a remote location in the Himalayas to set up a school and hospital for the local people, only to find themselves increasingly seduced by the sensuality of their surroundings high up in the mountains, and by the local British agent Mr Dean.

Sample Player

Narrator	Christina Thornhill
Length	7hrs 30mins
Catalogue No.	9867
Publisher	Virago Press; 2013

Other audiobooks by Rumer Godden

BREAKFAST WITH THE NIKOLIDES

For Emily Pool, India is a magical place where she has the freedom to escape her mother's suffocating influence. But as the cracks in Emily's family home are papered over, and the Pools strive to maintain an outward impression of respectability, it is through the Nikolides that Emily discovers that nothing in the town is quite as it seems . . .

CHINA COURT

Tracy Quinn, daughter of a screen star and raised on film sets around the world, returns to her adored family home, a country house named China Court. Her grandmother's recent death has set in motion events that threaten Tracy's future and the very existence of China Court.

CROMARTIE V THE GOD SHIVA

A young London lawyer is sent to India to take the case for the defence when a statue of the God Shiva goes missing. There he falls in love with the elusive Artemis.

FIVE FOR SORROW, TEN FOR JOY

The Sisters of Béthanie, a French order of Dominican nuns, dedicate themselves to caring for the outcasts of society - criminals, prostitutes and drug addicts. Lise, an English girl who after the liberation of Paris was employed in one of the city's smartest brothels, and rose to become a successful Madame, finds herself joining the Sisters.

A FUGUE IN TIME

Grizel Dane, a bold young servicewoman in the US army, arrives at the London home of her great-uncle Sir Rollo Dane seeking refuge from the chaos of wartime. Through the old man, Grizel learns the surprising history of the Dane family and their adoptive daughter Lark Ingoldsby.

THE GREENGAGE SUMMER

A summer holiday in France for an English family of five children is not the happy time they had expected…and what is the mystery about Mr Elliott?

A HOUSE WITH FOUR ROOMS

Rumer Godden left India with her two daughters in l945 and found England battered by war. Sequel to 'A Time to Dance, No Time to Weep' (2492).

IN THIS HOUSE OF BREDE

Leaving her successful career in the Civil Service to join an enclosed order of Benedictine Nuns, Philippa Talbot must learn to forgive and forget the past.

KINGFISHERS CATCH FIRE

Sophie, an English ingenue with two children, arrives in Himalayan Kashmir to set up home in a tumbledown cottage. Settling down to live quietly, frugally and peacefully with her new neighbours, she is unaware of the turmoil her arrival provokes as the villagers compete fiercely for her patronage and the unwanted consequences are catastrophic.

MISS HAPPINESS AND MISS FLOWER

Sent back to England to live with her cousins, Nona missed her home in India, but with the help of her two Japanese dolls wishes can come true.

PIPPA PASSES

Seventeen-year-old Pippa is one of the many dancers in the Midlands City Ballet chosen to go on an Italian tour. In Venice she attracts the attention of Niccolo, a gondolier, and gradually becomes aware of a more grown-up, complex world.

PREMLATA AND THE FESTIVAL OF LIGHTS

Tonight is Diwali, the most magical night of the year, but Premlata is desolate - her family is too poor to have lamps.

THE RIVER

Harriet is caught between two worlds: her older sister is no longer a playmate, her brother is still a little boy. And the comforting rhythm of her Indian childhood - the sounds of the jute factory, the colourful festivals that accompany each season and the eternal ebb and flow of the river on its journey to the Bay of Bengal - is about to be shattered by a tragic event.

A TIME TO DANCE, NO TIME TO WEEP

Brought up largely in India, Rumer Godden came to know the continent intimately. In her adolescence, spent chiefly in Britain, she found a vocation. The story of her life after her return to India - starting a dance school for British and Indian children, marriage to a charming but weak man, abandonment, bringing up two children - is an inspiring one.

TWO UNDER THE INDIAN SUN

In 1914, following the outbreak of war, two small sisters left London to return to India and their home in East Bengal. This book is their remembrance of the five years that followed, in the village of Narayangunj - where there father worked as a steamship agent - on a river that feeds the great Brahmaputa. Jon and Rumer Godden capture all the colour, sound and smell of exotic India, but especially they bring to life again the people of every kind - of place, custom and religion - and as children they were befriended by all. This book is Imperial India remembered, seen through the honesty and clarity of children's eyes.