(Un)arranged Marriage — Bali Rai

Reissued in Penguin''s ORIGINALS series of powerful teenage fiction.

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.