Seeking the Taj

In "Seeking The Taj", Elaine Williams evokes a spirited young woman's immersion into the mysterious society of deposed Indian royals where crumbling palaces hold dark secrets and treachery abounds. Set in 1969, when hippies, soul seekers and the beatles swarmed into India, Garnet, a young poet with a painful past, is travelling in India to write about the empress who inspired the Taj Mahal. Burdened on the trip by the brilliant, half-mad Niles, at the Taj Mahal she encounters Ravi Singh, an exuberant, charismatic prince descended from a dynasty of eccentric royals. Ravi pursues her and although she is deeply drawn to the prince, the near tragic assault she endured as an adolescent left her fearful of romantic entanglements. But in Agra she is befriended by Ravi's royal auntie, a wise and worldly woman who seized her freedom in a repressive society, and has much to teach Garnet.