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 #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 #622: Everybody's Son: A Novel by Thrity Umrigar

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


“I feel bare. I didn't realize I wore my secrets as armor until they were gone and now everyone sees me as I really am.”

----Veronica Roth

Thrity Umrigar, the bestselling, critically acclaimed author, has penned a terrific and extremely heart breaking literary fiction in her new book called, Everybody's Son: A Novel that centers around a biracial, abandoned kid, who is adopted by a rich and powerful white family while his crackpot mother rotted away in jail, and later he grows up to carry forward his adopted family's name by himself becoming someone important, but he can never shake off the strong relationship he had with his own mother and now after so many years, he is going to learn lots of dirty secrets about his past as well as about his adopted family, that will threaten his whole sanity as well as his existence.

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Review #161: His Lover's Little Secret by Andrea Laurence

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


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

----Antoine François Prévost, a French author and novelist

Andrea Laurence, an American author, crafted a heart-touching love-story about a single mother and her life's choices and priorities, in her latest book, His Lover's Little Secret .

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Review #83: Portrait of Stella by Susan Wüthrich

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


“Often the right path is the one that may be hardest for you to follow. But the hard path is also the one that will make you grow as a human being.”
----Karen Mueller Coombs, author

Susan Wüthrich, an English author, has envisioned a heart-touching story in her debut book, Portrait of Stella, which is about the journey of a young woman, named Jemima searching for her real identity and roots.

Synopsis:
A fake birth certificate! No record of her existence in the UK data base. Jemima Ashton is desperate to discover her real identity.
With scant information and the burning question 'who am I?', she embarks on an incredible journey of detection.

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Review #81: & Sons by David Gilbert

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


John Robert Wooden, a retired American basketball coach, quoted about "fathers" as:

“Being a role model is the most powerful form of educating...too often fathers neglect it because they get so caught up in making a living they forget to make a life.”

David Gilbert, is one such American author, who has spun an incredible tale which explores the whole dimension of a father-son relationship in an all new angle, in his latest release, & Sons .

Synopsis:
Told from the first person narrative, Philip Topping unfolds a story about the life and times of his favorite author, A.N. Dyer, who also happens to be his father's best friend. The Manhattan funeral of Charles Henry Topping would have been a minor affair but for the identity of the eulogist: reclusive author A.N. Dyer, whose novel Ampersand stands as a classic of teenage angst. Now Andrew Newbold Dyer takes stock of his own life, the people he’s hurt and the novel that will endure as his legacy. He realizes he must reunite with his three sons before it’s too late. Eldest son Richard is a screenwriter in Californian exile. In the middle is Jamie, who has spent his life capturing the sorrow that surrounds him. And last is Andy, now a pupil at the boarding school that inspired Ampersand. It is only when the hidden purpose of the reunion comes to light do the sons realize what’s at stake – for their father, themselves and three generations of Dyers.

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Review #78: Poison Pill by Glenn Kaplan

My rating: 2 of 5 stars


“An eye for an eye will only make the whole world blind.”
----Mahatma Gandhi

That's incredibly correct. What will be left of us, if we all start to do that "eye-for-an-eye" thing- the world will be certainly doomed. But in this 21st century, we've clearly and proudly chose the road to doomed future rather than a better future- courtesy: thanks to revenge.

Well, sorry for drifting away from the topic, I mean that's what I was literally feeling after reading, Glenn Kaplan, a New York Times bestselling author's latest book, Poison Pill . Although my initial reaction after reading the book was WTF!?!! , still I felt it was something worth reading to have a reading-Robin-Cook-kind-novel-experience only till the mid-way of the book. And the ending was drastic, so w\out-of-the-world, and really crappy! End of story!

Synopsis:
Caught in a war that pits greed and ambition against conscience and love, Emma Conway faces the fight of her life—to save her family, her company, and everything she treasures.
Emma is finally living the dream—a happy second marriage and a great career. She has built Percival & Baxter’s painkiller, Acordinol, into a huge success. But her dream becomes a nightmare when a Wall Street raider threatens a hostile takeover. Worse, the raider is no ordinary cutthroat but her ex-husband Josh Katz, father of their teenage son.

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Review #69: Watermark The truth beneath the surface by Sari Sikstrom

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Watermark: The Truth Beneath the Surface by Sari Sikstrom is a journey of a young forensic librarian on her quest to find the identity of her father. This tale not only captures this young librarian's journey from the grandeur Rome to the old and very English city, Oxford, but also captures another woman's passage to an exotic country, India.

Synopsis:

Dr. Vela Ostofvold, daughter of a very famous singer named, Olivia Ostofvold, who embarks upon a quest to search for her father, after her best-friend, Amelia tells her that she is the reason behind her father's absence. When Vela was fourteen and left alone by her careless mother, Olivia, she went to a book-store to find the largest and the oldest dictionary, where she meets Amelia, who happen to be the book-store owner's daughter. Eventually their bond grows into friendship and soon they become each other's guide in their lives. Vela falls in love with Amelia's cousin, Franco. But after Amelia's comment, Vela looks for the clues of her father's identity among her mother's closet in their rented flat in Rome, where she stumbles upon her grandmother's friend, Penelope's letters, where she has narrated her journey to India where she fell in love with an Indian Sikh man and got awestruck by the colors and the cultures of India. But eventually, Vela distances herself from her lover as well from herself on her quest to find her father. Will Vela be successful to identify the watermark in her life? Will she find her father?

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Review #44: Wreaking by James Scudamore

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


“When you're the only sane person, you look like the only insane person.”
-----Criss Jami, an American author

And that's probably what I was feeling about myself while reading this extraordinarily unique novel of James Scudamore, called Wreaking, which is based on the lives and past of three hermetical characters revolving around a desolate and forgotten psychiatric hospital, named Wreaking on the English coast. An eerie and creepy tale, at the same time, an enthralling and captivating tale which will pull you into its very psychotic core and leave you with a claustrophobic feeling into the preposterous and freakish world of three deranged characters.

PS: And you are the only sane individual among this set of insane characters.

Synopsis:
Past: Jasper Scriven, an ex-teacher and a victim of lung disease, lives in the dilapidated mental asylum, Wreaking, in the south of England, which he bought with his dead wife's money, intending to turn it into a private school. Flash forward to the present: But now his dream seems lost and forgotten just like the crumbling and shabby corridors of Wreaking and he collects case histories about the patients once resided in Wreaking and pens them down to incorporate a book of his own. Apart from recollecting the case histories, Jasper ponders upon the lives of individuals, especially, his estranged daughter, Cleo.

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Review #7: Crossing the Tracks by Barbara Stuber

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


John Griffith "Jack" London, an American author, journalist, and social activist, has quoted remarkably about "Hobos", i.e. homeward-bound;

"They were hobos, and with every word they uttered...
It all spelt adventure."

Let me be clear one thing, homeless people are not exactly "hobos", "hobos" are more interesting with lots of experience in life. "Hobos" have got a direction in their life and generally people coin "Hobo" in a negative way, but it's actually a positive word! The author, Barbara Stuber has shown that in her award-winning book, Crossing the Tracks. Yeah, I know sounds very hobo indeed, but it’s not, although, in the end, the protagonist is left as homeless and living off in some body else’s home, still, the title is so fitting with the protagonist, Iris's situation, who resided in Atchison, in Kansas, but all of a sudden we see her as a hobo living in a farm in Wellsford. This tale is so profound that it takes away your heart and makes your heart ache for Iris's journey towards her home, to where her heart belongs.

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