(Un)arranged Marriage

"Any teenager under pressure from his or her parents to conform will enjoy this novel" (Guardian)

"Rai has an unselfconscious style and a dry sense of the ridiculous . . . An appealing subversive edge" (TES)

"Absorbing and engaging . . . A highly readable debut from Bali Rai that teenagers of any culture will identify with" (Observer)

"Energetically and pacily written . . . There is a vitality and freshness about Rai's writing that engages the reader . . . An intriguing debut that promises well for the future" (Books for Keeps)

"Brilliant" (Amanda Craig The Times)

MANNY WANTS TO BE A FOOTBALLER. OR A POP STAR. OR WRITE A BESTSELLER. HE DOESN'T WANT TO GET MARRIED...

'Harry and Ranjit were waiting for me - waiting to take me to Derby, to a wedding. My wedding. A wedding that I hadn't asked for, that I didn't want. To a girl who I didn't know... If they had bothered to open their eyes, they would have seen me: seventeen, angry, upset but determined - determined to do my own thing, to choose my own path in life...'

Set partly in the UK and partly in the Punjab region of India, this is a fresh, bitingly perceptive and totally up-to-the-minute look at one young man's fight to free himself from family expectations and to be himself, free to dance to his own tune.