29 November 2017

Review #685: The Weight of Him by Ethel Rohan



My rating: 4 of 5 stars


“Don’t grieve. Anything you lose comes round in another form.”

----Jalaluddin Mevlana Rumi




Ethel Rohan, an Irish author, has penned an extremely heart touching story called The Weight of Him that revolves around an obese father's loss over his elder son who has committed suicide, and his journey to deal with grief and heal over the loss of his loved one lead him on a path to weight loss but sadly that pushes him away from his dear family and his wife. Set in an idyllic back ground of Ireland, this deeply moving story is going to inspire the readers dealing with loss and grief thoroughly.

27 November 2017

Review #684: Little Secrets by Anna Snoekstra



My rating: 4 of 5 stars


“And above all, watch with glittering eyes the whole world around you because the greatest secrets are always hidden in the most unlikely places.”

----Roald Dahl



Anna Snoekstra, an Australian author, has penned a riveting psychological thriller called, Little Secrets that is centered around a small Aussie town, where a female wannabe journalist lives amidst her unhappy family and the haunting memories of burning down of the courthouse with a kid inside it, but when porcelain dolls looking like an exact replica of little daughters of the houses start to turn up into those houses' doorsteps, that wanna-be journalist is sure that she has found her new story that will make her a sure-shot journalist, not before she stumbles upon a strange man living in the town's motel whose arrival brought upon that dolls incident.

23 November 2017

Review #683: Demi-Gods by Eliza K. Robertson



My rating: 3 of 5 stars


“People say teenagers think they're immortal, and I agree with that. But I think there's a difference between thinking you're immortal and knowing you can survive. Thinking you're immortal leads to arrogance, thinking you deserve the best. Surviving means having the worst thrown at you and being able to continue on despite that. It means striving for what you want most, even when it seems our of your reach, even when everything is working against you.”

----Francesca Zappia


Eliza Robertson, a Canadian award winning author, has penned a subtly compelling historical fiction called, Demi-Gods that revolves around two teenage sisters who find themselves caught in the charms of two blue-eyed, slim and terribly handsome teenage brothers who are the sons of their mother's new beau. Together the four patrons discover sexuality, first love, summertime adventures, life and themselves through mistakes and sun-kissed beach side drama. The exploration of teenage-hood is well captured through this sunny story set in the 1950s British Columbia and California.

21 November 2017

Review #682: Empress Orchid (Empress Orchid, #1) by Anchee Min



My rating: 3 of 5 stars


“A man who does not like power will suffer from its cruelty.”

----Shan Sa



Anchee Min, a Chinese author, has penned an enlightening tale about the last empress of China in her book called, Empress Orchid that revolves around a young concubine of the last emperor of the forbidden city where the young lady is caught in the race against an heir to the king in order to rise above her mistress status, but once she becomes the empress, she gets tangled up in the war of jealously, rage, ugly politics, scandals against the kingdom which she wants to desperately save it from the English invaders but the problem is the kingdom doesn't want to be saved, thereby becoming the sole reason for the downfall of the forbidden city.

16 November 2017

Review #681: The Astonishing Thing by Sandi Ward



My rating: 4 of 5 stars


“A cat has absolute emotional honesty: human beings, for one reason or another, may hide their feelings, but a cat does not.”

----Ernest Hemingway



Sandi Ward, an American author, has penned a heart warming debut contemporary fiction called The Astonishing Thing that is centered around a regular family of four and with one pet cat and a pet dog, and this pet cat narrates the story of this family from her perspective and how suddenly the marriage of the husband and wife shakes the ground of each one, including the cat itself, and how the cat makes an effort to repair this family. A truly enlightening and refreshing tale told from the point of view of a pet female cat whose emotions run deeper than the roots.

14 November 2017

Review #680: Wonder Woman: Warbringer (DC Icons, #1) by Leigh Bardugo



My rating: 5 of 5 stars


I used to want to save the world. To end war and bring peace to mankind. But then, I glimpsed the darkness that lives within their light. I learned that inside every one of them, there will always be both. The choice each must make for themselves - something no hero will ever defeat. I've touched the darkness that lives in between the light. Seen the worst of this world, and the best. Seen the terrible things men do to each other in the name of hatred, and the lengths they'll go to for love. Now I know. Only love can save this world. So I stay. I fight, and I give... for the world I know can be. This is my mission, now. Forever.

----Diana Prince, From the movie Wonder Woman by Patty Jenkins




10 November 2017

Review #679: The Fishermen by Chigozie Obioma



My rating: 5 of 5 stars


“I have now come to know that what one believes often becomes permanent, and what become permanent can be indestructible.”

----Chigozie Obioma



Chigozie Obioma, an ward winning Nigerian writer, has penned a captivating and a spellbinding tale called, The Fishermen that revolves around four brothers living in a small town in Nigeria, who in the absence of their strict father, decide one day to go for fishing in the river that is supposed-to-be-cursed, later to sell their catch for good money, but when their mother comes to know about it, they could not avoid their father's harsh beatings and later the older brothers gets cursed by a local madman that he would be killed by one of his fishermen brothers, leading to a chain of disastrous events in the lives of the four brothers.

9 November 2017

Review #678: Copycat by Alex Lake



My rating: 3 of 5 stars


“He who searches for evil, must first look at his own reflection.”

----Confucius


Alex Lake, a British novelist, has penned a subtly gripping psychological thriller called, Copycat that is centered around a well established doctor, wife and mother of three kids whose life takes a wild turn when one of her college friends moves back to her hometown who informs her about the fake profile that someone has been using under that doctor's name. Not only that, things get more weird, when the Facebook posts on that fake account gets a little too close to the home, leaving her husband dubious of his wife's mental health condition, owing to the fact that postcards, emails, handwritten notes, Amazon account all are being impersonated by someone who knows the doctor a little too well or maybe the doctor is doing it all by herself, who knows? Read the book to find out!

8 November 2017

Review #647: A Hundred Little Flames by Preeti Shenoy



My rating: 5 of 5 stars


“To the loyal and to the blood-lovers, in the good families and in the fiery dynasties, life is family and family is life. It is the same people who give advice and their vices to live well who turn out to be the ones who give resource and reason to live long.”

----Criss Jami


Preeti Shenoy, an Indian bestselling, pens a heart warming family drama in her new book called, A Hundred Little Flames that centers around the bond of friendship between a young man, who has recently lost his job in the city, and his aging yet humble grandfather, living in his ancestral home in a small village in Kerala. When the paths of the two collide through trust, love, and through a beautiful story, of two friends whose fates never let them to tie the knot in a holy matrimony, the young man and the grandfather learn a lot about life from one another and also learn to live for themselves.

6 November 2017

Review #646: Victoria & Abdul by Shrabani Basu



My rating: 4 of 5 stars


“If I had a flower for every time I thought of you...I could walk through my garden forever.”

----Alfred Tennyson



Shrabani Basu, an Indian author has penned an honest memoir about a forgotten man who mattered the most in the life of Queen Victoria in her book called, Victoria & Abdul: The True Story of the Queen's Closest Confidant. Abdul Karim was just a young man when he first met the British monarch, Queen Victoria and since that day, till the day, the queen died, their friendship stayed invaluable and that reached beyond the walls of Osborne House to Buckingham Palace to India thereby creating an uproar amongst the royals and the British Empire. Very predictably, after the death of the Queen, her family erased every single proof of the Queen and her munshi's friendship, yet somehow and mostly through hard work, dedication and by miracle, author, Shrabani Basu, has successfully resurrected the forgotten Indian Muslim man who became an integral part of Queen Victoria's life through this memoir.

2 November 2017

Review #645: Red Maize by Danesh Rana



My rating: 5 of 5 stars


“Terrorism has nothing to do with religion, Islam or otherwise. Terrorism is born of fundamentalism not of religion.”

----Abhijit Naskar



Danesh Rana, an Indian Police Service officer of Jammu and Kashmir cadre, has penned a vividly compelling tale about Jammu and not Kashmir, the metaphor of this heavenly paradise and its ever growing militants, which we rarely hear of from the hills of Jammu, in his debut book called, Red Maize. This book narrates the tale of three Muslim brothers and their headstrong and brave mother set across the idyllic mountainous landscape of Jammu, where the middle brother joins his hands with the militants to free his land from the Indian Armed Forces, caught between the crossfires of the jihads and the Indian Armed Forces are the innocent people of the land.