patio heaters
heat and dust
set in colonial india during the 1920s heat and dust tells the story of olivia a beautiful woman suffocated by the propriety and social constraints of her position as the wife of an important english civil servant . longing for passion and independence olivia is drawn into the spell of the nawab a minor indian prince deeply involved in gang raids and criminal plots . she is intrigued by the nawabs charm and aggressive courtship and soon begins to spend most of her days in his company . but then she becomes pregnant and unsure of the childs paternity she is faced with a wrenching dilemma . her reaction to the crisis humiliates her husband and outrages the british community breeding a scandal that lives in collective memory long after her death .
in a narrative intermingling past and present a young english woman journeys to india to reconstruct the behavior of her grandfathers first wife olivia who left husband and friends in 1923 out of love for an indian prince