#Reunion by Suvika

#Reunion by Suvika is a murder mystery involving serial murder on the rampage, targeting participants of a college reunion. Our protagonist Reyansh, the wolf, ultimate fixer guy of Corporate World, is the prime suspect and linked somehow with Murders. The story is about how Maya Bansal, SP, and Reyansh's love interest tackles this even when people are getting killed one by one.

Although you get the hint, about the identity of the killer few pages before the actual reveal in the book, the confirmation and motive behind the murders will surely shock many readers, especially in India.

Suspense thrillers with romantic love interests are Suvika's specialty, I have read all her books with my favorite being A Man to die for. Although certain times accused of plagiarism, the way Suvika Indianizes the story gives depth to her characters, shows them struggling with their demons, and experiences are her USP as a writer. No over the top romance or drama, just right amount of spark that keeps readers interested in leads, without overshadowing actual plot. She sketches the characters which we can always relate to even though we may not know such people in real life. Even the professions she gave to her leads in this one is highly central to story. Maya is a cop whose love interest is the prime suspect of serial murders. We can feel her struggle trying to be objective about the investigation and on realizing his innocence, fighting hard to find the real murderer. Reyansh is the ultimate fixer of the corporate world who works in shadows and fixes things for corporates. For normal people, his job may look bit shady and may increase suspicions over him, but there is nothing shady or hidden about the persona of this guy. He moves on from ex-girlfriend without a grudge, helps find a job to a friend who is fired coz of him, is a loving protective brother who fails to recognize signs of any abnormality in his sister's behavior. He is a fixer who is unable to identify issues needed to be fixed in his personal life. He is supportive of Maya's exhaustive work, worried and protective about her without being all Macho about it, and most importantly is super confident about her skills. The subtle gender reversal is highly appreciable here. Maya is a cop, tough physically working with ease in a male-dominated world. Reyansh being a professionally analytical guy is never seeing being the one who solves things with punches but uses his brain in that. If there is a fight amongst friends he will try to reason with them, if there is an unwanted obsession by a friend he would shout at her and make her see sense if Maya takes risks and uses herself as bait, he cooperates with her, staying at sidelines, confident with her team.

There is also no drama about how they fell in love. When they propose they directly do and accept it. As a reader, I also didn't felt a need for unrequired flirting or romance in such an intense thriller. But still, you will feel the emotional attachment between both leads.

The only flaw I felt in the book was there was no closure in the epilogue. It is indirectly hinted that maybe things will go good for them, but as a reader who has felt about the emotional shock of protagonists, you will want more, something greater than these not so direct smoothening of things. Whether Reyansh has the strength to move on was also not clear. I wished there was more clarity with which book was ended.

Memorable Quotes-

None in particular

My verdict-

If you are looking for not so intense but good murder mystery with Indian set up go for it…

Availability-

Amazon India

The Importance of being Earnest

So yesterday night, I had one hour spare before my usual bed time and had to travel to work early today. You know how we bookoholics don't have much grasp of time when we read. And as I am too guilty of finishing of the books at the cost of my sleep, I decided to pick a book, that is short and already read by me once, but wanna reread again.

Tada ...Raided  Husband's shelf and got The Importance of being Earnest by Oscar Wilde.  A wicked, funny classic that stole my heart when I read it first during my college days. Though 30+ old me found the girls bit dumb, but I understand that humour in story demands that.

Set in three acts, this classic comedy is light hearted, funny read that will bring a smile to your face. Also, please don't miss, how Oscar Wilde touches the issues like Classism, pedigree, parentage, Arrange marraiges, etc prevalent at that time without coming heavy on them. The most funny humour is generated vide the  paradoxical virtues that are celebrated and considered high in esteem while in real life they are looked down upon. For example Cecily's infatuation with Earnest, the supposedly Bad brother of her uncle Jack, Or the confrontation of Jack by Lady Bracknell when he proposed to Gwendolen.

Lastly like all classics, The Importance of being Earnest, still will rule the heart of Book lovers with its clean humour, funny premise and desperation of two heroes to win their lady love.

My Verdict - Always an Evergreen Classic

Memorable Quotes -

The book is a gem, with funny quotes and phrases at every page.And this post would be insufficient to quote all my favourite phrases, so I picked these  that seemed too wise, apt and funny and bit relevant now also- 

"I really don’t see anything romantic in proposing.  It is very romantic to be in love.  But there is nothing romantic about a definite proposal.  Why, one may be accepted.  One usually is, I believe.  Then the excitement is all over.  The very essence of romance is uncertainty.  If ever I get married, I’ll certainly try to forget the fact."

"I am sick to death of cleverness.  Everybody is clever nowadays.  You can’t go anywhere without meeting clever people.  The thing has become an absolute public nuisance.  I wish to goodness we had a few fools left."

Available at - Almost every good book store, free of cost online at Project Gutenburg, Hard/ Soft copy at Amazon, Crossword, Flipkart.

Where the Forest meets the stars

Well when the book is an Amazon Charts, Wall Street Journal, and Washington Post bestseller, and a Goodreads Choice Award finalist, the expectations are pretty high.  Where the Forest meet the stars by Glendy Vanderah is amazing Book filled with lots of love, hope and positivity we all need in our life.

Reading the blurb I mistook it for fantasy, but even though rational explanations are given in end, the book seemed simply magical. The characters, the story arc, their past struggles, future uncertainity and the spirit with which they try to overcome these is simply amazing. I loved the way, as writer puts it, the three leads, Jo, Ursa and Gabe had created a nest for themselves. The plot, refernce to forest, stars, nesting and migrating seasons was so poetic and heart touching that by end I had my heart in my mouth, desperately wanting to have these characters Happy ending.

If you are looking for a book on positivity, hope with little bit of allure for magical feel, please read this. No words will suffice the feel you have when you live the characters of Jo, Ursa and Gabe.

My Verdict: Please read this one

Best phrases :

"I've decided language isn't as advanced as we think it is. We're still apes trying to express our thoughts with grunts while most of what we want to communicate stays locked in our brain"

"Survivors can live and love more fully than people who haven’t stared death in the face."

"If she’d learned one thing in the last two years, it was that life could be hard enough without adding petty resentments."

"Sometimes bad things happen to make good things happen".

Availablity- Amazon , Free with Kindle unlimited subscription

The Best Man by Kristan Higgins

In an age of one night stands, here comes story of Faith ready to have  a dream wedding with love of her life; only to be jilted at altar. Fast forward to three years later, where Faith is getting attracted to the person responsible for ruining her wedding- The Best Man- Levi Cooper.

Here are the leads that always felt something for each other. Even when she was dating his best friend, supposedly love of her life. Did they pursue each other then? No, ignoring the attraction over the practicality of their situation. and what do they do years after when they meet again and old attraction rekindles is the rest of the story here.

I loved Faith's family drama, and the characters that supported our leads. I loved Faith's spirit, an epileptic patient, she doesn't let her disability, her ruined wedding, small town gossip, tragedies of her past or lack of dating success lessen her optimism. Never once in entire book, even when she is broken, she seems depressed. Her relationship with her past fiance are also shown too mature.

Her relationship with our lead Levi cooper, although starts with attraction, slowly brews and grows on us. I felt some kind of domesticity whenever they both were involved. One of the rare books now, that doesn't force putting Sex in front of readers all in name of passion.  It just remains a part of their relationship, never overshadowing it.

What didn't worked for me was poor development of Levi's character. I just failed to connect with this guy. I failed to reason his logic of dating Faith, or of fighting with her. He seemed too superficial. Even his efforts for reconciliation didn't generate any empathy. I think his poor character development is the main reason, why story wouldn't stay with you long after you read it, inspite of having strong plot and other strong lead and supporting characters.

Memorable Quotes- None, but yes I had a happy feeling whenever Faith was around in book.

My Verdict - Wish the male lead had any depth.

Best to read - This one is really long, so start reading when you can justify that time. Story itself will not grip you to finish it. 

Availability -  Amazon

The Reluctant Matchmaker

Well I am back again after a long break. No, I Didn't stop reading all these years, just stopped reviewing them apart from some on Good reads. But this year's resolve is to start this blog again. And here I am...

Well the first book I read in 2019, is The reluctant matchmaker by Shobhan Bantwal. The premise is pretty much set in Amerika as we desis call it, with  protagonist being second generation American - Indian.

Now this is how book fared for me-

Plot - With female protagonist(Meena Shenoy) interested in male, and our hero being so dumb to ask her to find a bride for him, this could have made for really intriguing plot but alas writer was too lazy to put depth in it. He could have easily carved pun in this extremely predictable story but he missed it.

Primary Characters - Well I almost can say this was one protoganist story as our hero missed any kind of character building here. Remember one iconic male character that resists female protagonist as he was too dangerous for her kind. That was Edward to our Bella and it was Vampire ~Human love story. Our hero here uses same convulated logic that  he is not good for our female protagonist due to his gigantic build and in his own words, " Any Kind of physical relationship with me will be death of you"😂 and "Can you honestly see a man over two hundred pounds making love to a doll like you,"🤔 well with male protagonist having such harebrained logic , it was difficult to accept him as CEO of a software firm in US.

In any normal book, I would have dismissed Meena's character too, but her being only one to cling to, I feel that writer should have carved the characters better.

Secondary Characters - Many a times in book, I felt that writer just made a checklist of requirements of story, and implemented all in this one without bothering to check whether there was requirement for the story or not. For example most of romantic Mills and boons type of books have one evil vamp, here we had one lady called Gargi Bansal, which was there is three to four instances in book. Our female protagonist says she is evil, and we have to accept she is evil. She does almost nothing in entire book. Why she was there is big mystery. Also there were bunch of other odd Characters and a sub-plot of Meena's brother loving a Muslim that were utterly unnecessary and did nothing to the story.
The second character of Akka that was sort of Grand mother of Meena and actual match maker is end also was a imposed on us. As if writer thought there is need of one sassy Grand Mother and there she is available in out story. Just like we have seen in many movies based on NRIs life. Replace here with any Good friend / Neighbour/ collegues and then also you won't miss any thing in book. That is all because writer was too lazy to build his characters or to give them any depth.

Memorable quotes - None

My Verdict -Opportunity wasted due to lazy writing

Best to read - I read this one when I was there at some place and needed to read something but couldn't afford to invest my much attention in that. I call it Passive Reading. Reluctant Matchmaker doesn't deserve undivided attention.

Availability - Hardcopy at Amazon and Flipkart

Animal Farm

Fight for the Freedom. Agreement to establish a democratic system. Commandments for the secular state. And in the end, few of the fighters become “More Privileged” and rest of them “toil hard for the needs of the privileged ones… Does it resembles the state of our Country? Actually its synopsis of the “Animal Farm”  by George Orwell.

The catch here is the book was published way back in 1945, before India got its freedom. And yet, it coincidentally mirrors the Journey of India or rather many democratic states.

The fight of the freedom by animals, their abhorrence for humans, and the ultimate behavior of some animals matching with humans, is satire on our political systems.

Though according to the writer Orwell, the book is based on, events leading up to the Russian Revolution of 1917 and then on into the Stalin era in the Soviet Union, its content and satirical message is much more relevant in today’s scenarios also.

It’s one of those reads, that will never fade with time, and will send you in deep thought on what our political scenario has became

The best thing about ‘Animal Farm’:-

 The Content- though written way back in 1945, I could connect with the story today also..

 Crisp writing- The writer if wanted could have converted this novella and dragged it to become full-fledged book. But he deliberately avoided that, giving thought provoking plot in small novella.

The Characters – The characters are actually inspired by certain world famous leaders. But actually you can always identify them with leaders that came into force even after book was published. This is the most important facet of “Animal Farm” that makes it relevant even today.

The Commandments – Yes, “Animal Farm”, gives you seven commandments of animal world that are modified as per changing times. It’s satire on how we change our values for our benefit.

Animal Farm was a surprise read, recommended by some Friend. And I truly recommend everyone to atleast once read this humorous – political – satire that will send you deep thoughts but with a smile on your face.

Overall  5/5 read

The famous quotes are its seven commandments and modifications thereof:

The original commandments are:

1. Whatever goes upon two legs is an enemy.
2. Whatever goes upon four legs, or has wings, is a friend.
3. No animal shall wear clothes.
4. No animal shall sleep in a bed.
5. No animal shall drink alcohol.
6. No animal shall kill any other animal.
7. All animals are equal.

Later, the changed commandments are as follows:-

4. No animal shall sleep in a bed with sheets.
5. No animal shall drink alcohol to excess.
6. No animal shall kill any other animal without cause.

Grey: Fifty Shades of Grey As Told by Christian

First of all, let me admit, I liked the trilogy- Fifty Shades of Grey a lot.  The time I read it, I was unmarried and it was first erotic series that introduced me to the world of BDSM. So, it was novelty. And more than that, its Ana-Grey’s love story had striking resemblance to Bella-Edward’s relationship that touched my heart. And why not, the series originally was posted as Fan-Fiction to Twilight.

Coming to Grey- Fifty shades by E L James from the point of view of Christian Grey. The story is same as First part of trilogy’s series Fifty Shades of Grey, albeit from the point of view of Christian Grey, as opposed to Anastasia’s version in first series. The idea is also inspired from Twilight series (Stephenie Meyer's unfinished version of Twilight from point of view of Edward – Midnight Sun).

Well we never got to read Mid night sun, So I had to pre – order this one for sure. The book arrived on the stipulated time, and as soon I finished my office, and home chores, and started with this. And my boy it was sooo long. I sincerely felt that the book dragged at certain points especially the occasions of sex. The negative point here is, if I didn’t know the story, I would have read word by word of it. But as knew it, I skipped the paras, where sex was feeling repetitive.

The narration- the selling point of this book, whose story world already knew, was its narration from point of view of mysterious Christian Grey, the world wanted to know, what exactly he thought of his relationship with Anastasia Steele. However this selling point turned off when I started reading this book. When Anastasia’s narration touched heart, I as a reader connected to her as like her I was novice to world of BDSM before reading this book. Like her, I was exploring this with the book. I felt like her. But I couldn’t empathize with Christian in same way. His character is too advanced in his world and I fail to form sync with him in Grey. As a reader, I fail to make a connect with protagonist. I think this is a two way sword the failure of the book as well as the success of it.

Apart from this failed relationship with narrator, the fan of series would surely enjoy the book, especially the climax. Grey’s feeling and his view to give his and Ana’s relationship a chance, will surely make up for the long drag book, Grey is. Also for original lovers like me, it will inspire you to re-read Ana’s version of Fifty Shades of Grey again.

Summarising the book in Grey's Style, the book is not Outstanding or dud....It's like its name is Grey, you won't love it, buy will surely read it.

And regarding the expectations from possible sequel, In words of Christian Grey, "Do I dare to hope?

Damn it. Yes, I do."

As a Fan of series 3.5 out of 5.

Favourite Quotes- None from Christian’s World.