Rita Maraj is born into an Indian family and raised in Guyana. With a beautiful stepsister and a socially ambitious stepmother, she feels like Cinderella in a society where girls are expected to marry early and on command. Her refusal to do so makes her a distinct oddity. But the arrival of a messenger from the former Maharani of Khandapurnam, a distant relative, is to change her destiny forever. She must set out to India to help tempt the heir apparent back from the religious sect he has joined. The journey is to lead her and her stepsister through the brothels of Bombay, where the younger the girl and the paler the skin, the higher the price. They encounter the old-fashioned drawing rooms of high society, the temples and hospitals of India's multitudes, and finally the old villages from where their family once came. Dramatic, vivid, moving and exotic, Peacocks Dancing is a truly spellbinding read.