Review #720: I Didn't Expect to be Expecting by Richa S Mukherjee

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


It's a great thing about being pregnant - you don't need excuses to pee or to eat.

----Angelina Jolie

Richa S Mukherjee, an Indian author, has penned an extremely hilarious and a captivating tale about motherhood and its mistakes in her new book, I Didn't Expect to be Expecting. This book revolves around a happily married, cool couple who amidst of their busy jobs, meeting deadlines and tackling weird bosses and colleagues in office, they always find time for each other and also for their crazy set of friends, and a kid is no where close in their 5 years blissfully married life's radar, until they become pregnant, and gradually their perfect life takes a slippery road and so the protagonist's body and mind.

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Review #715: The Bitter Pill Social Club by Rohan Dahiya

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


“All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.”

----Leo Tolstoy

Rohan Dahiya, an Indian author, has penned a satirical contemporary fiction called, The Bitter Pill Social Club that revolves around a family based in Delhi, India, who lives for their selfish reasons and most importantly for their social status amongst their friends, relatives and Instagram followers. The sarcastic yet very vivid portrait of a filthy rich family who lives on their own terms, without realization that they are destroying lives as they go on with their Insta worthy life. But soon tragedy strikes this family and it is high time for the family as a whole to realize their mistakes before they lose themselves to the social media frenzy.

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Review #711: This House of Clay and Water by Faiqa Mansab

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


“But you can only lie about who you are for so long without going crazy.”

----Ellen Wittlinger

Faiqa Mansab, a Pakistani author, has penned an extremely evocative contemporary fiction called, This House of Clay and Waterthat revolves around two women and one transgender searching for love, freedom and identity, set against the repressed yet exquisite backdrop of the city of gardens, Lahore. One is chained and married to a man of extreme political power in a loveless marriage, while the other is a feminist and is destined to be with a man with whom she can't explore her sexual desires and passion and then there's this transgender who knows that God almighty has made him the way he is destined to be and that he must find his love in Allah only, but their lives forever changes when they meet at a dargah (Mosque) and gradually a forbidden relationship begins to blossom under the holy roofs of that dargah.

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Review #694: The Fisher Queen's Dynasty by Kavita Kané

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


“If you want to see the brave, look at those who can forgive. If you want to see the heroic, look at those who can love in return for hatred.”

----Krishna Dharma

Kavita Kané, an Indian bestselling author, has penned an inspiring and extremely compelling mythological tale inspired from the characters from the Indian epic mythology, Mahabharata in her new book called, The Fisher Queen's Dynasty that revolves around two key protagonists, one ordinary woman, denied of her royal birth-right who grows up under the care of a meager-fisherman, and later claims to the throne of Hastinapur by her clever tricks, but sadly she becomes a pawn to the dirty politics of the state, turning her into a bitter and wicked queen and the other, a handsome prince, who is the true heir to the throne to Hastinapur, but he sacrifices away his chance to become the king in order to fulfill his father's romantic wishes to marry a fisher-girl. The woman is known as Satyavati, the grandmother to Pandu and Dhritarashtra and the man is known as Bhism, the son of Ganga.

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Review #691: Austenistan by Laaleen Sukhera

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


“A lady's imagination is very rapid; it jumps from admiration to love, from love to matrimony in a moment.”

----Jane Austen

The Jane Austen Society of Pakistan started by the journalist-cum-author, Laaleen Sukhera payed a homage to our very dear and favorite 18th century author, Jane Austen, by penning some Austen-themed stories about the rich, some feminist and damsel-in-distress type, dramatic, haughty aristocrat Muslim women, who are way past their "marriageable age" of a posh society based in Pakistan, through a book called Austenistan featuring a collection of seven short stories written by the members of the Jane Austen fan club and is edited by Laaleen Sukhera.

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Review #689: An Excess Male by Maggie Shen King

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


“Both men and women should feel free to be sensitive. Both men and women should feel free to be strong…it is time that we all perceive gender on a spectrum not as two opposing sets of ideas.”

----Emma Watson

Maggie Shen King, a Taiwanese bestselling author, has penned a highly thought-provoking dystopian novel, An Excess Male that revolves around a not-so young man longing for companionship with a woman while getting wrapped up in a government-influenced deadly drama and scandal and is set in not-so-distant future in China, where male to female sex ration has become tremendously high, gradually making women almost extinct from the face of the Earth. This is the Handmaid's Tale for the men set the year of 2050.

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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 #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.

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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 #632: The Crunch Factor by Andaleeb Wajid

My rating: 2 of 5 stars


“You don't love someone because they're perfect, you love them in spite of the fact that they're not.”

----Jodi Picoult

Andaleeb Wajid, an Indian author, has penned a mildly heart warming, Bollywood-ish and spicy contemporary romance called, The Crunch Factor packed with a finger-licking delicious love triangle between a female food photographer, whose parents ask her to marry a filthy, rich restaurant owner, but unfortunately her heart is torn apart between the choices and the duties towards her middle class family and the choices of her heart's desire that wants to be wooed by that very restaurant's hunky and handsome head chef. Will it all be roses for the food photographer? Or will it cost her a lot of challenges to walk on the right path which she actually deserves?

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Review #629: True Liars by Isha Inamdar

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


“We have to allow ourselves to be loved by the people who really love us, the people who really matter. Too much of the time, we are blinded by our own pursuits of people to love us, people that don't even matter, while all that time we waste and the people who do love us have to stand on the sidewalk and watch us beg in the streets! It's time to put an end to this. It's time for us to let ourselves be loved.”

----C. JoyBell C

Isha Inamdar, an Indian writer, has penned her debut contemporary romance story called, True Liars that revolves around the life of a young and aspiring female deejay artist caught between the worlds of her best gay friend and that friend's brother interspersed with wedding vows, typical big-fat Indian wedding, lies, friendships, love and passion in a serene landscape of a small heritage town in Jodhpur. This novel is perfect for the fans of Colleen Hoover, Sylvia Day, Jojo Moyes.

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Review #625: One Little Mistake by Emma Curtis

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


“I'm not upset that you lied to me, I'm upset that from now on I can't believe you.”

----Friedrich Nietzsche

Emma Curtis, a British writer, pens her debut psychological thriller called, One Little Mistake that revolves around a woman, who is a mother of three beautiful children, wife to a husband who loves her a lot and with a job she loves, but her perfect life has cracks and those cracks make her slip, as she commits one tiny little mistake, which she later confides to her beat friend, who in turn, asks her to keep lying in order to save her kids from child protection services and little did this woman knew that a terrible calamity was waiting at her front door, the moment she confided in her best friend. A story about two best friends and a little girl, who just lost her mother and is forced to go to foster care.

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Review #619: Don't Let Go by Michel Bussi

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


“We should forgive our enemies, but not before they are hanged.”

----Heinrich Heine

Michel Bussi, a French award-winning author, pens his latest crime thriller, Ne lâche pas ma main translated into English with the title, Don't Let Go. The story revolves around a happy married couple and their young daughter, while holidaying at a French island, the wife goes missing without a trace but leaving behind a trail of clues and eye-witnesses that make the husband a sure shot suspect, and when the local female detective reaches the crime scene, she is sure that the husband is hiding something from them and not too long her hunch comes true, as the husband runs away from the police and the ongoing investigation, and so the body count which skyrockets like anything.

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Review #616: Pyre by Perumal Murugan, Aniruddhan Vasudevan (Translator)

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


“We are united by our common fears and divided by our individual freedom!”

----Ramana Pemmaraju

Perumal Murugan, the idol of Tamil literature in India, who has been shunned by a court of law because of the fact that his books have erupted fires of scandal amongst its people, thus bringing an end to the glowing career of a talented writer in the country, whose another Tamil book named, Pookkuzi has been translated from the original version of Kongu rural dialect into English by the author's dedicated translator named, Aniruddhan Vasudevan and in English its called, Pyre.

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Review #610: The Grass is Singing by Doris Lessing

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


“The loneliest moment in someone’s life is when they are watching their whole world fall apart, and all they can do is stare blankly.”

----F. Scott Fitzgerald

Doris Lessing's, the Nobel Prize winning debut book, The Grass is Singing revolves around a youngish woman who after marrying a South African white farmer, and within a few years, looses herself and becomes a victim to immense loneliness as she realizes her husband's constant failure both in his farm as well as in their shared marital life, and that's how her remorse grabs her soul and makes her extremely critical towards her black servants treating them with distaste and hatred, ultimately paying a heavy price for her racial discrimination towards her servants.

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Review #601: The Breakdown by B.A. Paris

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


“Every man is guilty of all the good he did not do.”

----Voltaire

B.A. Paris, an English bestselling author, pens a mind blowing psychological thriller in her new book, The Breakdown that revolves around a female recently married teacher returning back from a party, one rainy night, through a short cut road, when she suddenly stops her car to help another woman sitting motionlessly inside her car parked by the lane of the road, but she decides against helping that woman and drives by, and the next morning, she is shocked to find that particular woman has been found murdered, followed by her dementia and her immense guilt and fear about the murder of someone she could have saved.

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Review #600: What Alice Knew by T. A. Cotterell

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


“All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.”

----Leo Tolstoy

T.A. Cotterell, the British author, pens a mind blowing and extremely gripping psychological debut thriller, What Alice Knew that revolves around a portrait artist whose husband goes missing one night out of the blue, but when he comes back, their perfectly happy family life threatens to come apart and the portrait artist is left with no other choice but to protect her family at any cost.


PS: This is not like any other traditional pot-boiling thriller, instead it follows what happens after a crime is committed and how you need to cover that crime at any cost.

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Review #593: Behind Her Eyes by Sarah Pinborough

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


“When two people are under the influence of the most violent, most insane, most delusive, and most transient of passions, they are required to swear that they will remain in that excited, abnormal, and exhausting condition continuously until death do them part.”

----George Bernard Shaw

Sarah Pinborough, an English-born horror writer, has penned a creepy psychological and domestic thriller, Behind Her Eyes that revolves around the lives of three individuals, one single mother and a married couple, whose paths cross in the most unusual way possible. The single mother gets tangled up into that couple's life in the worst possible way when she falls for the husband and at the same time, she befriends the wife and she can't betray any one of them. Gradually the couple's complex past surfaces up and that threatens to destroy the single mother and the life around her.

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Review #592: The Hidden Child (Patrik Hedström, #5) by Camilla Läckberg, Tiina Nunnally (Translator)

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


“One day you will do things for me that you hate. That is what it means to be family.”

----Jonathan Safran Foer

Camilla Läckberg, the international bestselling author, is back with her new Nordic noir, The Hidden Child which is the fifth book in her popular crime thriller series, Fjällbacka. This book welcomes the well admired protagonist, Patrik Hedström, who is on a four month paternity leave for his 1 year old daughter whereas his popular crime writer wife, Erica is back to writing novels but she is distracted by sight of her mother's journals and lingering mystery behind a Nazi medal found among the belongings of her mother, soon followed by the murder of the historian whom Erica had sought help for that medal's history right before his tragic death.

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Review #587: The Innocent by Harlan Coben

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


“The best revenge is to be unlike him who performed the injury.”

----Marcus Aurelius

Harlan Coben, an international bestselling author, has penned a hypnotizing crime thriller, The Innocent in which the author has spun a tale about an ex-con whose after prison life has turned out to be surprisingly good, but unfortunately his dream life threatens to come crashing down when a video featuring his wife is sent to his phone by his wife, and parallely, one murder occurs after another and young cop is trying to connecting the dots of these murders while another teenager tries to dig up the past of her murdered mother and must punish her killers.

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