In this charming memoir, a jet-setting journalist falls in love with the heir to a ramshackle, one hundred-room palace in India, and finds home and love in the most unexpected of places Say you're a glamorous magazine writer with a serious Jimmy Choo habit, a weakness for five-star Balinese resorts, and a reputation for dating highborn British men. Then one day you find you're swooning over a most unlikely suitor, an Indian journalist who turns out to be a prince (of sorts), but whose family palace is falling to pieces, and whose intimidating mother, upon meeting you for the first time, examines your hair for dandruff. Would you run for the hills? Or would you soldier on for the sake of the man who just might be your soul mate? A modern-day fairy tale, Where the Peacock Singsis a funny, insightful, and deeply moving chronicle of life in modern India as seen through the author's complex relationship with her husband's ancestral mansion, a century-old, hundred-room ramshackle palace called Mokimpur. Mokimpur is endearingly imperfect, a broken down relic in desperate need of a makeover. The Peacock Sings for Raintakes readers on a cross-cultural journey from the manicured gardens of Beverly Hills, to the bustling streets of Hong Kong and finally to the rural Indian countryside as Alison comes to terms with her complicated new family, leaves the modern world behind, and learns the true meaning of home.