In The Company Of Strangers (Audio Book) by Awais Khan

 In The Company Of Strangers

by
Awais Khan

Audio book narrated by Esh Alladi
Listening time 9 hours and 40 minutes
Released 1st April 2021 by Isis Audio.

In the glittering world of Pakistan's elite, all is not what it seems...

Mona has almost everything: money, friends, social status... everything except for freedom.

Languishing in her golden cage, she craves a sense of belonging...

Desperate for emotional release, she turns to a friend who introduces her to a world of glitter,

glamour, covert affairs and drugs. There she meets Ali, a physically and emotionally wounded man,

years younger than her.

Heady with love, she begins a delicate game of deceit that spirals out of control and threatens to

shatter the deceptive facade of conservatism erected by Lahori society, and potentially destroy

everything that Mona has ever held dear.

In The Company of Strangers is available to buy now from your favourite book retailer in paperback, e-book and audio formats, or via the link HERE.

About the author:

Awais Khan is a graduate of the University of Western Ontario and Durham University. He is also an alum of Faber Academy. He teaches creative writing in Pakistan as part of the Writing Institute and 

has delivered lectures at Durham University, American University of Dubai, Canadian University of  Dubai to name a few. 

He has appeared on BBC World Service, Dubai Eye, Voice of America, City42, Cambridge Radio, Samaa TV, Indus TV, PTV Home and several other radio and TV channels. His work has appeared in The Aleph Review, The Hindu, The Missing Slate etc.

 
He is the author of In the Company of Strangers (published by Simon and Schuster, The Book Guild and Isis Audio) and No Honour (published by Orenda Books in Summer 2021). He is represented by Annette Crossland.

As part of this blog tour to celebrate the release of this incredible tale of forbidden love and terror in the sweltering heat of Lahore, it is my pleasure to bring you a little glimpse of the man behind the story and this author bio, with 10 intriguing facts about Awais Khan!

1. My favourite food is chicken biryani. It has to be done right, though. I like the special Bombay Biryani recipe. It is very spicy and absolutely delicious.

2. My celebrity crush is Laura Prepon.

3. I can speak 4 languages: English, Urdu, Punjabi and Saraiki. I used to be able to speak a bit of French, but not anymore.

4. My favorite quotes are: "It is never too late to be what you might have been."- George Eliot
and "Be who are you are and say what you feel, because in the end, those who matter don't mind and those who mind don't matter."Bernard M. Baruch

5. My favorite authors are: Donna Tartt, Kate Morton, Faiqa Mansab, A.A. Chaudhuri, Alan Gorevan, J.K. Rowling, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Eve Smith, Rob Parker, and most recently V.E. Schwab.

6. As a child, I wanted to be a doctor.

7. If I could be a teenager again, I'd tell him to follow his dreams and not give a damn about what people thought. I would ask him to major in Creative Writing.

8. I'm practically addicted to social media!

9. My first thought when I wake up in the morning is how many emails and messagess have I received while I was asleep!

10. A place I really want to visit would be Yellowknife, Canada.

Thank you Awais!

About the narrator:

Esh Alladi is an actor who trained at LAMDA and has a wide range of stage experience. His theatre credits include: Hobson’s Choice (Royal Exchange), Rutherford and Son (Crucible Theatre), Absolute Hell (National Theatre) and Twelfth Night (Royal Shakespeare Company). Esh is also no stranger to the screen and some of his TV credits include: Anthony (BBC), Unprecedented (BBC), A
Confession (ITV), Casualty (BBC), Frankie (BBC) and EastEnders (BBC). He won a UK Theatre Award in 2019 for Best Supporting Performance for his role in Hobson's Choice.

COMING SOON...

From Awais Khan and Orenda Books

A young woman defies convention in a small Pakistani village, with devastating results for her and her family. A stunning, immense beautiful novel about courage, family and the meaning of love, when everything seems lost…

In sixteen-year-old Abida’s small Pakistani village, there are age-old rules to live by, and her family’s honour to protect. And, yet, her spirit is defiant and she yearns to make a home with the man she loves.

When the unthinkable happens, Abida faces the same fate as other young girls who have chosen unacceptable alliances – certain, public death. Fired by a fierce determination to resist everything she knows to be wrong about the society into which she was born, and aided by her devoted father, Jamil, who puts his own life on the line to help her, she escapes to Lahore and then disappears.

Jamal goes to Lahore in search of Abida – a city where the prejudices that dominate their village take on a new and horrifying form – and father and daughter are caught in a world from which they may never escape.

Moving from the depths of rural Pakistan, riddled with poverty and religious fervour, to the dangerous streets of over-populated Lahore, No Honour is a story of family, of the indomitable spirit of love in its many forms … a story of courage and resilience, when all seems lost, and the inextinguishable fire that lights one young woman’s battle for change.

Available to pre-order now!