Eno Publishers builds on its successful 27 Views series 27 Views of Durham (2012); 27 Views of Hillsborough (2010); 27 Views of Chapel Hill (2011); 27 Views of Asheville (2012) by showcasing the literary community of Raleigh, North Carolina, in 27 Views of Raleigh: The City of Oaks in Prose & Poetry. The book features prose and poetry by 27 writers, who in poetry, essays, short stories, and book excerpts focus on the famous capital city. Contributors to this anthology include Bridgette Lacy, Tom Hawkins, Margaret Maron, David Rigsbee, Rob Christensen, Angela Davis-Gardner, Lenard Moore, Jimmy Creech, Amanda Lamb, Kelly Starling Lyons, Betty Adcock, Tracie Fellers, Grayson Currin, Eleanora E. Tate, Hillary Hebert, Scott Huler, Dan Gearino, Dana Lindquist, June Spence, Elaine Orr, Juliana Nfah-Abbenyi, Peggy Payne, and Tina Haver.

The exotic and suspenseful story of an eccentric guest-house keeper in Varanasi, India, and the passions evoked by her sacred city along the Ganges.

The Lonely Planet recommends the Saraswati Guest House, and meeting Madame Natraja, "a one-woman blend of East and West," as well worth a side trip. Over the course of a weekend, several guests turn up, shocked to encounter a three-hundred-some-pound, surly white woman in a sari. Then a series of Hindu-Muslim murders leads to a citywide curfew, and they unwittingly become her captives. So begins a period of days blending into nights as Natraja and her Indian cook become entangled in a web of religious violence, and their guests fall under the spell of this ancient kingdom--at once enthralled and repelled by the begging children, the public funeral pyres, the holy men bathing in the Ganges at dawn.

This is a traveler's tale, a story about the strange chemistry that develops from unexpected intimacies on foreign ground. And Peggy Payne's extraordinary talent vividly conjures up the smells of the perfume market, the rhythms of holy men chanting at dawn, the claustrophobic feel of this ancient city's tiny lanes, and the magic of the setting sun over the holy Ganges. For anyone who has harbored a secret desire to go to India and be transformed, Sister India takes you on this journey without ever leaving home.