Review #70: But I Love You by Peter Rosch

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Why are you the way you are?
asks Alicia Lynn Wilde to one of her prospect for the Elite Two Meet's members club, in the book, But I Love You written by Peter Rosch. Elite Two Meet, Alicia's brainchild, is a club of elite and super-rich, single men and women, and is built up on delusional beliefs and lies.

But I Love You is a dark love-story, although it was a one-sided love-affair, more of an obsession and possession over someone. The underlying story is a sweet love-story, but since, it's a one-sided affair, it turns quite bloody at the end.

“If you're that obsessed with someone, why would you kill her?
Humans are full of contradictions.”
----Ai Yazawa, a Japanese Magna author
Because finally when you realize that you can't possess that person's heart, who you love so deeply, then you feel like killing them and taking their souls out of them, and maybe that's a contradiction.

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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 #68: A Taste of Blood Wine by Freda Warrington

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Have you ever wondered why women top the charts on being the vampire-fiction writers around the world? Well, to answer that, I'd love to share this Josh Hutcherson quote, who is the "Hunger Games" trilogy actor:

"I think girls like vampires because they are mysterious and they really don't know what they are about. I think a lot of girls are attracted to that."

Equivalently, a British author, named, Freda Warrington, has penned down the novel called, A Taste of Blood Wine which is the first book in the Blood Wine series, and it is strictly about "Vampires", "vampires", and only "vampires", and to make it more edgy, accounts of First World War is included for some treat. A historical Vampire love-story sounds already so cool. I always find such Vampire books as really cool and enthralling to read but Stephanie Meyer's vampire stories are way too cheesy. Please Note: The book was first published in the year 1992, long before, Stephanie Meyer's Twilight series.
Disclaimer: I didn't intend to enrage the Stephanie Meyer's fans.

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Review #67: The Rummy Club by Anoop Ahuja Judge

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Manoj Vaz, a young Indian author, has quoted remarkably about card games as:

“Life may not have dealt you a great set of cards... but who says the one with better cards will win?”

Anoop Ahuja Judge, an Indian origin American author's debut book, The Rummy Club is all about cards, friendships, hardships and clearly conveys the message that someone in possession of better cards will not necessarily win.

Synopsis:
Five years ago Divya Kapoor moves from the immigrant ghetto of Queens to the SF Bay Area with her husband and children to start over. In this new place, she re-discovers her three closest friends from the girls’ boarding school they all attended in a Himalayan foothill town. The four women commit to meet weekly at one another’s homes to eat and share and gossip, and to play the popular Indian version of Rummy.

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Review #66: Hangman (Abbie Kearney, #2) by Stephan Talty

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Carl Panzram, an American serial killer, rapist, arsonist and burglar, has quoted about his deeds as:

I don't believe in man, God nor Devil. I hate the whole damned human race, including myself... I preyed upon the weak, the harmless and the unsuspecting. This lesson I was taught by others: Might makes right.

Stephan Talty, the New York Times bestselling author, has spun an astounding tale about a serial killer on loose on the streets of Buffalo town, in his new book, Hangman which happens to be the second book in Abbie Kearney series. Although this is the first book that I read of this author, still threw me off the edge with his master thriller about a notorious serial killer.

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Review #65: Live and Let Die by Bianca Sloane

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


“All extremes of feeling are allied with madness.”
----Virginia Woolf, Orlando

Bianca Sloane, an American author, has penned her new debut thriller named, Live and Let Die which is based of madness and obsession. This dark thriller made me freeze to my bone and left my mind numb with its stark fear and chill. And honestly this is the best debut thriller book that I ever read. For a first time, author, it's not easy to unfold a gripping and clever mystery, but Bianca has skillfully and smartly pulled all the strings correctly, thus resulting in an intriguing mystery that will take you places where you would never expect to go.

Synopsis:
On a bitterly cold January evening, Tracy Ellis went for a jog along Chicago’s snowy lakefront and disappeared. Her body was discovered days later, her beautiful face bashed in with a rock. Police determine her brutal death to be a mugging gone wrong and drop the matter into their cold case files.
Over a year later, Tracy’s sister, Sondra, still can’t come to grips with what happened. She throws herself into her work as a documentary filmmaker to try and forget the cruelty of her sister’s death. However, a chance encounter with a man from Tracy’s past rips the wound open and sends Sondra on a desperate search for answers about the secrets from her sister’s life that may have led to her death.

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Review #64: Ruined (Stratford High #1) by Marian Manseau Cheatham

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


         “Sigh no more, ladies, sigh no more,
           Men were deceivers ever,-
          One foot in sea and one on shore,
         To one thing constant never.”
                ----William Shakespeare, Much Ado about Nothing

Based on Shakespeare's famous play, Much Ado about Nothing , Marian Manseau Cheatham, a Chicago based author, has penned her latest novel, Ruined which explores the roller-coaster ride of the emotions of teenagers and their impulsive attitude over everything in the twenty-first century.

Synopsis:
Blythe Messina, the senior year student of Stratford High is no longer in a relationship with the lacrosse star of her school, DB Whitmore. But it is getting impossible for Blythe to get over DB Whitmore when her uncle Leo is sponsor of the whole lacrosse team. Her niece, Bonni Messina is falling for another lacrosse star named Cory Rash. But when scandalous and illegal photos of Bonni and the lacrosse captain are texted among the whole school, Boon's reputation is immediately

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Review #63: The Mona Lisa Speaks by Christopher Angel

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


"If you were the Mona Lisa
You'd be hanging in the Louvre
Everyone would come to see you
You'd be impossible to move
It seems to me is what you are
A rare and priceless work of art
Stay behind your velvet rope
But I will not renounce all hope"

Madonna's song called Masterpiece in which first few lines talks about the unconditional love towards Leonardo Da Vinci's painting, The Mona Lisa. So many people around the world have undoubtedly tried to get their hands on Mona Lisa, because after all these times, still people fall in love with her unconditionally. But, Christopher Angel, an American author-cum-film-maker, has penned down a mystery novel by the name, The Mona Lisa Speaks, during a visit to the Louvre. I was surprised to find that the painting talks, actually she has feelings and unfortunately in the end, despite of all the deserving glory and unconditional love in the world, the Mona Lisa, ends up in the store rooms, or rather say, dungeons of the Louvre. This is a very brilliant and enchanting mystery surrounding Mona Lisa's painting in the Louvre and how her destiny changes forever.

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