Review #718: Sidney Sheldon’s The Silent Widow by Tilly Bagshawe

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


“Never allow someone to be your priority while allowing yourself to be their option.”

----Mark Twain

Tilly Bagshawe, the New York Times bestselling author, is back with a bang with another gripping Sidney Sheldon mystery called, The Silent Widow. This story revolves around a top shot psychiatrist, whose husband died in a car crash a year ago, and is still in grief, but soon her patients and acquaintances are dropping dead like flies, and the local police mark the poor widow as the prime suspect, even though her life too is in danger. Eventually forcing her to take help of a local PI, who uncovers a lot of dirt about a missing girl case 10 years ago to her husband's tragic death to the serial killings of her patients, which might even make him a victim out of it.

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Review #716: The Last Watchman of Old Cairo by Michael David Lukas

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


“The heart of a father is the masterpiece of nature.”

----Antoine François Prévost

Michael David Lukas, an American bestselling author, has penned a compelling historical fiction called, The Last Watchman of Old Cairo that revolves around an American part-Jewish-part-Muslim student exploring the roots of his father's side family in Cairo where his father's forefathers used to be the watchman of an ancient synagogue, protecting its secrets and faith with their courage and sacrifices. The author has spun this tale around three shifting timelines about a young Muslim boy, two twin sisters from Cambridge on a mission to Cairo and a young American student picking the clues his father left for him after his death.

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Review #713: Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


“I have a million things to talk to you about. All I want in this world is you. I want to see you and talk. I want the two of us to begin everything from the beginning.”

----Haruki Murakami

Haruki Murakami, the international bestselling Japanese writer, has penned a heartbreaking coming-of-age young love story in his book called, Norwegian Wood that reads like listening to a sad, sad song about two young hearts beating for one another, yet separated by hopelessness and pain and where the readers know that they are never destined to be together, yet grasps on to that torturing pain of their longing for another till the very end, until an unpredictable tragic climax will shatter the millions of hearts reading or listening to this tale along with the protagonist. Yet the readers will keep reading/listening to this sorrowful yet enlightening tale of love on repeat till the end of time.

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Review #699: Genuine Fraud by E. Lockhart

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


“A liar is always lavish of oaths.”

----Pierre Corneille

E. Lockhart, the New York Times bestselling author, has penned an interesting young adult part-thriller and part-contemporary book called, Genuine Fraud that revolves around a teenage orphan girl, who is on the run, and in probably impersonating myriad identities, but why is she on the run? And for that, you need to trust the author as well as the story and not compare with some other book from where the author has found her inspiration. So kindly respect that and let's stop comparing the two and two, and rather talk about this book in particular. Debates can be taken up elsewhere, review is not the right place to talk about it.

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Review #698: The Birthday Girl by Sue Fortin

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


“There is still no cure for the common birthday.”

----John Glenn

Sue Fortin, an English author, has penned an atmospheric and compelling thriller called, The Birthday Girl that revolves around a mother, of a teenage son, who has recently lost her husband, receiving the best birthday surprise that she cannot ever imagine in her lifetime from someone really close to her heart, even though she has three best friends and one of her friends has already planned out a surprise weekend getaway somewhere away from the regular noises of the city, and in there unfolds a deathly mystery when the host of the holiday, reveals the secrets of each women through a creepy guessing game, finally turning fatal.

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Review #697: Fear Is the Key by Juggi Bhasin

My rating: 1 of 5 stars


“All I have is me, myself and I and we are all getting really tired of each other.”

----Carl R White

Juggi Bhasin, an Indian writer, has penned a mildly intriguing thriller called, Fear Is the Key that revolves around the disappearance of a start-up company management executive from the company owner's party thrown by the owner himself at his own apartment, who was in a relationship with the girl went missing strangely from his flat at the peak hour of his office party. And when no clues or no amount of investigation by the local police detective could not bring back his girl, he decides to take the matters into his own hands but little did he or anyone knew that truth and reality can be really weirder than anyone can ever imagine.

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Review #686: East of Hounslow by Khurrum Rahman

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


“Everyone’s worried about stopping terrorism. Well, there’s really an easy way: Stop participating in it.”

----Noam Chomsky

Khurrum Rahman, a Pakistan-born, British author, has penned a pot-boiling thriller, East of Hounslow that revolves around a low-key 30-something Muslim drug dealer, who still lives with his mum in the British town, Hounslow, who is not very religious, yet for the sake of religion, he attends the Friday prayers at a local mosque, but little did he knew that he has been on the radar of MI5 for a very long time, so when he loses the deadly supplier's money, this drug dealer gets caught up as a pawn in the war between religious extremists who wants the world to teach a lesson in the name of Allah and the MI5's one-man team who wants to stop the jihadists at any cost.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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!

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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.

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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.

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Review #644: Windfall by Jennifer E. Smith

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


“Remember that sometimes not getting what you want is a wonderful stroke of luck.”

----Dalai Lama XIV

Jennifer E. Smith, am American author, has penned an entertaining and light hearted young adult contemporary story called, Windfall that centers around an orphan teenage girl randomly buying a lottery ticket, but later giving it to the guy, on whom she has a huge crush on, as a gift, who also surprisingly wins the ticket, followed by the winning money drama between the two. But what they together discover is that, money's power is beyond friendships and love, and that it certainly can change things.

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Review #643: Best Day Ever by Kaira Rouda

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


“For there to be betrayal, there would have to have been trust first.”

----Suzanne Collins

Kaira Rouda, a USA TODAY bestselling, multiple award-winning author, has penned a gripping psychological thriller called, Best Day Ever that is centered around a perfect married couple, where the caring husband plans a perfect weekend getaway for his darling wife at their lake house somewhere away from their two young boys and the bustling noise of their urban life style. Although the husband has planned everything meticulously to surprise his stupid wife, but gradually, the true colors of the husband's intention behind this trip comes out, but can the wife sniff that out or will it be too late before she figure things out. A crazy, psychotic marital tale of a perfect couple.

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Review #642: My Absolute Darling by Gabriel Tallent

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


“She is still a prisoner of her childhood; attempting to create a new life, she re-encounters the trauma.”

----Judith Lewis Herman

Gabriel Tallent, a Mexican author, has penned an extremely heart wrenching and horrifying, debut young adult contemporary fiction called, My Absolute Darling that centers around a young teenage girl, living with her crack head father, who teaches her about guns and shooting targets in the morning after her school and rapes her almost every other night, although the young protagonist, is clever and brave enough to get out of this terrifying life of hers, yet her emotions don't let her to, but her life drastically changes, when her grandfather dies suspiciously, her father pulls her out of school, where her teachers are worried about her lifestyle, and her father brings home another young girl.

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Review #640: An Almond for a Parrot by Wray Delaney

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


“The gods made our bodies as well as our souls, is it not so? They give us voices, so we might worship them with song. They give us hands, so we might build them temples. And they give us desire, so we might mate and worship them in that way.”

----George R.R. Martin

Wray Delaney, pen name for Sally Gardner, an award-winning British children's author, has penned an intriguing and a very sizzling historical fiction called, An Almond for a Parrot that revolves around a young woman in London locked up in a prison as she is accused of killing her husband, whom she got married to at the age of 12 by her father to pay off his neck-deep debts, and from the prison cell, the woman narrates the story of her life, of how she discovered her sexuality at a tender age, of how she became a prostitute, of her godly gifts of seeing dead people's ghosts from parrots in a cage, of falling in love, of her other talents of pleasing men, and mostly of her erotic exploration through ages.

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Review #639: Toward a Secret Sky by Heather Maclean

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


“If I got rid of my demons, I’d lose my angels.”

----Tennessee Williams

Heather Maclean, the New York Times bestselling author, has penned a compelling YA fantasy book called, Toward a Secret Sky that centers around a teenage girl, who just lost her mother in an accident, turning her into an orphan girl, as a result she travels to the Scottish Highlands to her paternal grandparents' house, where she meets a strange yet very attractive young man, who unravels the mystery behind her deceased parents' true and real profession of helping the good and fighting darkness in the world, all the while opening a new dimension of universe for the young girl to make her believe.

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Review #638: The Bookseller of Kabul by Åsne Seierstad, Ingrid Christophersen (Translator)

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


“She couldn't survey the wreck of the world with an air of casual unconcern.”

----Margaret Mitchell

Åsne Seierstad, an Award winning journalist-turned-Norwegian-author, has penned a delectable and slightly captivating account of her stay with an Afghan family, who owned a bookshop in a terror-stricken and on-the-verge-of-a-civil-war type Kabul in the year 2002, in the book called, The Bookseller of Kabul. This is the personal story of almost every human being, mainly women of the household, from the bookseller family, with two wives and tons of children and an equally great number of siblings, the bookseller is a subtly liberal man of his times, that only demanded women of each and every household to stay indoors and keep giving birth until their last dying breath.

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Review #637: Charlatans by Robin Cook

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


“We can't possibly have a summer love. So many people have tried that the name's become proverbial. Summer is only the unfulfilled promise of spring, a charlatan in place of the warm balmy nights I dream of in April. It's a sad season of life without growth...It has no day.”

----F. Scott Fitzgerald

Dr. Robin Cook, the international best-selling author, is back with a bang and this time with an intriguing and pot-boiling medical thriller called, Charlatans that no-doubt, revolves around the cutting edge technology and advancements in the field of medicine and medical practices, but mainly centers around the educational backgrounds of the doctors, where the two protagonists, one, a chief medical resident and the other, a star anesthesiologist of the Boston Memorial Hospital who get tangled up in the OR deaths of three patients, and the investigation behind the death puts doubt in the minds of the chief medical resident about the star anesthesiologist's training and the fancy educational background, even though they get emotionally and sexually involved with one another beyond the premises of the hospital.

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