Sneaky Peek: Bollywood Wives by Alex Khan Release date 6th February 2019

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Zara Das is Bollywood’s hottest property, her every move watched by the eyes of the press. Riding high from the success of a string of blockbusters, she has the world at her feet, but the scandal from her latest film threatens to dethrone her as Bollywood’s reigning queen. 

So when superstar director Raj Dillon stages a lavish retelling of Pride and Prejudice, moving the shoot from Mumbai’s soundstages to London, Zara knows this is the role that could put her back on top. Coming with them are the Bollywood Wives - Jackie, Sasha, and Rani - bringing their own off-screen drama.

But behind the diamonds, designer clothes and seven-star hotels lies the truth of how Zara reached the top. And when a dead body is found in her hotel room, it seems that someone is determined to take Zara down - and will stop at nothing to expose her darkest secrets. 

Zara has spent years running from her past. But now it’s caught up with her… 

Author Bio

Alex Khan has spent his life dreaming of writing and starring in Bollywood movies, while travelling the world visiting some of the most glamorous and exciting locations. Moonlighting as a crime writer he finally got the courage to pen the novel he wanted to write all his life - Bollywood Wives, taking you into the dazzling, sexy, thrilling world of the world's biggest movie stars, and the secrets they hide…

Sneaky Peek

Zara Das was nineteen when she saw Mumbai for the first time. The bus that brought her was dusty, cheap, packed. Mumbai was the same. And within seconds, she knew this was home. This was where she belonged. Among the dirt, the desperation and the dreams. Oh yes, the dreams. And Zara Das had the biggest dreams of them all. Desires that took her from her small provincial town, and led her to where she was now, standing on her twenty-seventh-floor balcony, watching the waters of the Arabian sea as they washed up against the bright golden sand. Palm trees added to the exoticism as they swayed on the horizon.

She could easily pretend, as she let the heat of the sun warm her body, that it was her own bit of ocean. Her apartment building was prime location in Mumbai, with a view that guaranteed privacy from the millions of people that were thronging the streets just the other side of the residential complex.

It was a decade since that wide-eyed innocent girl had stepped foot into the heaving mass of the city of stars. And now, aged twenty-nine, she was the brightest star in Bollywood. When the Indian heat abated that night, and the glitterati came out to play, it was to the premiere of Zara’s new movie that they would go. A beeline to the hottest ticket in town. Ironically, the threat to her life had only made her stock rise. They all wanted to be there tonight, just in case. Sycophants. They had watched her claw her way to the top, resenting every success she had had, this two-bit nobody who had come from the backwaters of India, to rule over them. They were probably licking their MAC-coated lips in anticipation, waiting for her to fall and implode. But they hadn’t counted on Zara. She had fought hard for this view. And as the breeze danced with the palm trees, hypnotically, and the ocean waters cast a haze where they met the sands, Zara knew she would do everything to hold onto this view. Or die trying.

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She issued instructions to Shanti, telling her what she needed. Zara had gone against the subtle naked look she normally wore when out in public, ramping up the glamour quotient for the premiere. Her lips were clotted-blood red, her eyes rimmed with thick black kohl, touches of rose-gold along her cheekbones and shoulders. Her eyelids were magenta, with diamanté encrusted eyelashes and matching stones sparkling in her hair, which she had pulled back into a thick plait. Diamond earrings from Mouawad were the only jewellery she was wearing. It was her outfit that would get everyone talking though, and would fill the column inches tomorrow, her image splashed across the Internet within seconds of her arriving at the venue as every smartphone in the crowd took a shot of her.