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 #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 #594: Dangerous Games by Danielle Steel

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


“Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you.”

----Friedrich Nietzsche

Danielle Steel, the #1 bestselling author, is back with a bang with her new political thriller, Dangerous Games that revolves around a senior journalist cum single mother who would risk her everything to feed the world with the latest and the honest scoop of the happening news but when she is assigned to keep track of the vice president's money flow and recent activities, she had no idea that she was going to stumble upon a dangerous track that would jeopardize not only the security of her life but also her daughter's life.

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Review #528: The One Man by Andrew Gross

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


“After the thing went off, after it was a sure thing that America could wipe out a city with just one bomb, a scientist turned to Father and said, 'Science has now known sin.' And do you know what Father said? He said, 'What is sin?”

----Kurt Vonnegut

Andrew Gross, an American best selling author, pens his exciting and intriguing new historical thriller, The One Man that revolves around an old dying man who narrates the story of his untold past about a braveheart who saved the future by risking his life to rescue one forgotten scientist with a knowledge to build the atom bomb from a Jew camp in Poland right under the eyes and noses of some brutal and torturous Nazi soldiers.

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Review #512: Poisoned Blade (Court of Fives, #2) by Kate Elliott

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


“Loyalty to country ALWAYS. Loyalty to government, when it deserves it.”

----Mark Twain

Kate Elliott, an award-winning American YA author, pens the next book in her series of Court of Fives called, Poisoned Blade and this time the story gets deathly, complex and extremely mind-blowingly edgy as Jes, the champion of the Fives, is caught between the war of her divided kingdom as well as the strive and the challenge to save her dear mother and her sisters, all the while being under constant supervision of a cruel ruler.

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Review #511: Purple Hibiscus by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


“From the beginning men used God to justify the unjustifiable.”

----Salman Rushdie

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, an award winning Nigerian author, has penned an immensely absorbing family drama in her literary fiction novel, Purple Hibiscus where the author weaves the tale of a young Nigerian girl who belongs from a very rich and affluent family where the father of the family is a religious fanatic and used to torture his wife, his daughter and his son in the name of Christ if they commit a slight mistake, but when the young girl goes to live with her aunt during the military coup invasion, she learns ugly secrets about her not so perfectly religious family.

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Review #499: An Unsafe Haven by Nada Awar Jarrar

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


"Every heart to love will come, but like a refugee. "

----Leonard Cohen

Nada Awar Jarrar, an award winning Lebanese author, pens an incredibly moving tale, An Unsafe Haven set against the modern day back drop of Beirut, where the civil war as well as the religious in differences are effecting lives of those who have forever braced the war and also to those who live like a refugee. This story is about three families mainly, whose lives are effected by the raging war in the neighboring country Syria that makes them question their faith, loyalty to one another as well as to their patriotism towards their homeland.

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Review #493: Stasi Child (Karin Müller, #1) by David Young

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


“Cheating was a concept both foreign and integral to the fighting of wars.”

----Tom Clancy

David Young, an American author, has penned a riveting German thriller in his debut book, Stasi Child which is the first book in the Karin Müller series. This series welcomes an exciting and brave new female detective chief inspector or in German, an oberleutnant who is a married yet career-minded woman, assigned on the case when a teenage girl's mutilated body is found near The Wall in East Berlin in the 1970s, that leads her and her junior subordinate, Comrade Tilsner, to the edge of The Wall, Berlin's corrupt politics and an isolated teenage reformatory handled by then government.

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Review #492: The Good Muslim (Bangla Desh #2) by Tahmima Anam

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


“Suffering is a gift. In it is hidden mercy.”

----Rumi

Tahmima Anam, an award-wining Bangladeshi author, has penned a soul touching and a highly poignant historical fiction surrounding a family torn between the after-effects of war, politics and family love in her book, The Good Muslim which is the second book in her Bangladesh series. This story opens with the daughter who goes into exile for seven long years to study medicine and to open up her own practice as a doctor, returning back to her hometown where her old mother is still waiting for her and her ex-soldier brother is vouching towards the narrow philosophy of his religion's preaching, thereby creating a gap stronger than their years of distance between the brother and the sister.

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Review #474: The Searcher (Ben Webster #3) by Christopher Morgan Jones

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


“You could be the perfect spy. All you need is a cause.”

----John le Carré

Christopher Morgan Jones, an English author, has penned an incredibly thrilling crime fiction in his latest book, The Searcher which is the third book in the Ben Webster series. In this book, the author weaves a tale where the main hero of his stories goes missing and his intelligence firm partner faces a hell lot of troubles from the police to surrender his friend who is accused of so many felonies, and his partner must find him out before trouble comes knocking at their doorstep, and little did he knew, that he has to risk his own life to search him in the deadly mountains bordered and inhabited by Russian criminals.

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Review #470: The Scatter Here Is Too Great by Bilal Tanweer

My rating: 3 of 5 stars



“Just above our terror, the stars painted this story in perfect silver calligraphy. And our souls, too often
abused by ignorance, covered our eyes with mercy.”

----Aberjhani

Bilal Tanweer, a Pakistani author, has penned a poignant tale of five different characters whose lives are devastated after a sudden bomb blast in Karachi and how terrorism fails to bring the peace that these characters are desperately looking for in a city tormented by violence, defected and biased political agendas and terrorism in his award-winning book, The Scatter Here Is Too Great.

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Review #466: Curfewed Night: A Frontline Memoir of Life, Love and War in Kashmir by Basharat Peer

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


“Home is people. Not a place. If you go back there after the people are gone, then all you can see is what is not there any more.”

----Robin Hobb

Basharat Peer, an Indian author, has penned his poignant memoir, Curfewed Night where he flawlessly captures the conflicted as well as forgotten pain of the pastoral state of India through his childhood days till adulthood and the author has also captivated the strong sense of one's own "home" be it idyllic or broken or tortured. Through this memoir, the author has walked down into the memory lane of his childhood days in Kashmir.

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Review #463: The Half Mother: A Novel by Shahnaz Bashir

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


“God know that a mother need fortitude and courage and tolerance and flexibility and patience and firmness and nearly every other brave aspect of the human soul.”

----Phyllis McGinley

Shahnaz Bashir, an India author, has penned a tragic story about a mother's love in his book, The Half Mother: A Novel where the author weaves the story of a Kashmiri mother looking for her son who has been arrested by the army in a raid following an attack by the militants in their locality. Thus begins the journey of a desperate mother looking for her son from one army camp to another to one minster's home to another police station to finally approaching the media, but with time, her health deteriorates and it seems no one is aware that a boy is missing.

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Review #458: Tears of Jhelum by Anita Krishan

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


“Onnai je kore ar onnai je sohe, tobo ghrina jeno tare trino somo dohe."

Translated version: "Those who commit injustice and those who forbear it, Let them blaze like hay in the fire of your indignation."

----Rabindranath Tagore

Anita Krishan, an Indian author, has penned a gripping yet emotional bookTears of Jhelum that narrates the story of a Kashmiri man who tries to protect his family as well as himself while turning a blind eye to the crime happening around him, but when his act of turning a blind eye comes haunting to him, he realizes that he has committed a grave mistake in order to save himself from the inevitable death.

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Review #455: The Secret Language of Stones: A Novel (The Daughters of La Lune, #2) by M.J. Rose

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


“I love you as certain dark things are to be loved, in secret, between the shadow and the soul.”

----Pablo Neruda

M.J. Rose, a New York Times bestselling novelist, weaves an enchanting and romantic tale called, The Secret Language of Stones: A Novel that is the second book in The Daughters of La Lune series, that traces the life of young woman with powers to encrypt the messages of those beyond the grave to their loves ones with the help of rare gems that is filled with magic, love, betrayal, war and politics.

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Review #439: Dark Horse (Eddy Harkness #2) by Rory Flynn

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


“The trouble with conspiracies is that they rot internally.”

----Robert A. Heinlein

Rory Flynn, a Boston-based mystery writer, is back with yet another edgy and twisted thriller in his new book, Dark Horse that is the second book in the Eddy Harkness series where the stories are revolving around a Boston-based cop, Eddy Harkness, the local hero, commonly known as the "Harvard Cop" and his adventures while serving the Narco-Intel department of his city. This book unfolds the story of a deadly drug wiping clean of any lives, those are found alive despite of a deadly hurricane, of a fictional town in Boston and the few lucky ones are wandering into Eddy's hometown, thus creating more trouble that Eddy can sniff from the very comfort of his own home.

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Review #438: Blood Flag (Paul Madriani #14) by Steve Martini

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


“Anyone can deal with victory. Only the mighty can bear defeat.”

---- Adolf Hitler

Steve Martini, an American best-selling author, pens an exciting yet thrilling new book from his Paul Madriani series, Blood Flag and it is the fourteenth book in the series. This series is centered around a quite renowned Californian attorney, Paul Madriani, flanked by his partner, Harry Hinds and each book in the series unfolds an electrifying chapter and adventure and mystery in Paul's life. Similarly, in Blood Flag too, Paul comes face-to-face yet with a new case and a new challenge to win over until this challenge turns life-threatening and deadly, killing off people, Paul cares about.

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Review #425: A School for Unusual Girls (Stranje House, #1) by Kathleen Baldwin

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


“And if we burn, you burn with us.”

----Suzanne Collins

Kathleen Baldwin, an American author, has penned a powerful and riveting historical regency-themed story in her book, A School for Unusual Girls that unfolds the story of a young rebellious and an exceptional girl who is a science-freak and loves to experiment with chemicals, irrespective of the polite girls in her society who are not allowed to meddle with chemicals, and that is when her parents decide to send her off to a boarding school, more like a correctional facility, so that she is transformed into a decent marriageable lady.

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Review #344: Pandora Red by Jay Tinsiano

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


“Power does not corrupt. Fear corrupts... perhaps the fear of a loss of power.”

----John Steinbeck

Jay Tinsiano, a British writer, pens his latest thriller, Pandora Red that features undercover detective, Frank Bowen, rushing from the city of London to Cuba while working in a covert operation to help protect the British government that not only restores his faith on working for the right and the wrong side but also jeopardizes the life of his family, but only problem is the time is ticking and he has to act fast to save his family as well as his faith for the government.

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Review #47: The K Street Affair by Mari Passananti

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Lena is the new age heroine/spy, who is firm, brave and determined on her mission. The K Street Affair by Mari Passananti is a thoroughly gripping literally from its first page, since the book opens with a terrorist attack in several Washington DC metros. The book takes you from the inner lives of the most powerful men in DC to the darkest alleys in Russia, and the whole journey is more like a ride on a roller coaster.


Synopsis:
Lena works in a law firm and the client list includes some of the most powerful men in the United States, a Russian oil tycoon, a government lobbyist and a soon-to-be Saudi prince. There is a underground bombing attack on several metro stations of DC, following which 2 FBI agents approach Lena and asks her to spy on her boss who is covering up those powerful clients, who are believed to be behind those bombing attacks. As a result, determined, Lena takes up the offer and gets down on her mission. But she soon finds out that there is a bigger political picture behind those attacks. Taking a dark path, will always end you up in trouble, similarly, Lena gets kidnapped and was captivated in Moscow. Will she free herself from the grips of the Russian mafia and what has she led herself into? For all those answers, you need to read the book!

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