Book Review #36 Silent fires

Silent fires

Author : Poojitha Prasad

Language : English

Genre : Suspense Thriller

Publisher : Notionpress

About the book

Inspector Ashish Bharadwaj is arrogant and hot-tempered, but he’s usually right about things. His brother, Manav, is quiet and intuitive. He is also brilliant at solving cases. 

When Shravya Chandra, wife of Arun Chandra the film star, goes missing – Ashish and Manav have their own hunches. Ashish is out to prove Arun Chandra’s guilt. But Manav wants to know more about Shravya’s old friend, Anchal because he’s certain that she is hiding something big. 

They both can’t be right, of course.

Ashish doesn’t want to be wrong; he’s never wrong. And Manav would give anything to snatch a victory from under his brother’s nose. 

Who’s right? And at what cost are they going to win? 

Since everyone’s looking only for what they want to see, will they ever actually find out what happened to Shravya Chandra?

And so begins the battle of egos, the endless search for a killer and the unravelling of secrets…

My take

Silent fires is an amalgamation of suspense, thrill, murder mystery, love, betrayal, complicated relationships, all in the perfect dose to form a rock solid narrative.

Shravya Chandra, the wife of superhit movie star Arun Chandra, disappears one fine day from amidst the crowd that has gathered to celebrate the stars birthday. She has returned from a girls trip with four of her best friends. Being a high profile case which soon turns from disappearance to murder, inspector Ashish Bharadwaj is pressurized from all sides to solve it. Being straight forward and no-nonsense kind, Ashish develops a cold war with Arun. Ashish's brother Manav, who is a photographer by profession and gets involved with crime documentaries, also gets deeply involved in the case. Ashish and Manav are chalk and cheese, and both work in ways totally different from each other. What happens next?

The narration is nice with a lucid flow. The story seems slow initially but picks up pace fast enough. The suspense is twisted and well developed and leaves the reader wanting to keep reading till the very end. Character development is flawless and every character stays true to itself.

The book cover is nicely designed but is too simple, could have been more effective had it been a bit murkier. 

I rate it 4.5 stars.

Book review #35: I am sorry, my love

I am sorry...my love

Author : Prashant Kaul

Genre : Romantic suspense

Language : English

Publisher : Author's ink publication

About the book

Raghav Malhotra has everything a guy could ask for – talent, influence, money. All that’s missing is companionship. In walks Siya Srivastav, a gorgeous BJMC student from Varanasi. One look at her and it’s love at first sight. But not all love stories are headed towards a ‘happily ever after’. The problem? It’s not love, it’s obsession. Raghav is besotted with her to a point where he can do anything to own her. His maniacal pursuit of unrequited love turns him into a stalker... and then a monster, shaking the very foundation of trust and friendship. How far will he go to quench his thirst of possession? Will he succeed in his endeavour, or will he succumb to the vagaries of destiny? Read I am sorry… my love to find out..

My take

Raghav Malhotra is an engineering student, who has all materialistic pleasures in life, and yet, is lonely. He craves for love and companionship. When he sees Siya, it's love at first sight for him. He feels he will walk into the sunset with her. But things are not what they seem to be. Siya is close to a guy, Akash.

Soon Raghav begins to obsess over Siya. The thin line between love and obsession begins to blur. He begins looking at Siya as an object to be possessed. And all hell breaks loose.

What happens next?

The Story is interesting. It is not the typical girl meets boy, boy meets girl and love happens kind of story. There is a touch of reality somewhere. How far can one go to get their means? What is the value of emotions? What is the value of friendships?

The author has beautifully caught the different emotions people go through when faced with adverse situations. The characters are strong and stay true to their nature. The language is easy to read.

The book cover is captivating.

Overall, an intriguing story of love and obsession. I rate it four stars.

Book review #34 Suicide med

Book name : Suicide med

Author name : Freida Macfadden

Language : English

Genre : Psychological thriller

About the book

“I don’t want to die like this. Not here, not now—in the anatomy lab on a Saturday night. I know I’ve done some bad things in my life, but I’m pretty sure I don’t deserve this…”

One suicide.  Every year.

Nobody wants to go to a school nicknamed Suicide Med.

Heather McKinley has always dreamed of becoming a doctor.  She doesn’t even care about her medical school’s grisly history of suicides—it can’t happen to her. But after Heather’s longtime boyfriend dumps her and she finds herself failing anatomy, her world starts to crumble.

The pressure is intense.  People crack.

Thank goodness for Dr. Conlon, her quirky but beloved anatomy professor.  He’ll do anything to help his students succeed.  But is it a coincidence that the bespectacled professor joined the staff the same year the suicides began?

Or are they suicides at all?

All Heather knows is that one student will die this year.

And that student could be her.

About the author:

McFadden is a practicing physician specializing in brain injury who has penned multiple Kindle bestselling psychological thrillers and medical humor novels. She lives with her family and black cat in a centuries-old three-story home overlooking the ocean, with staircases that creak and moan with each step, and nobody could hear you if you scream. Unless you scream really loudly, maybe.

My take:

The book is a psychological thriller about the first year students from a medical school which has earned the ominous nickname 'Suicide Med', as since the past six years, one student invariably commits suicide every year. And all of this began when the eminent, intelligent and highly respected Dr Conlon, joined the college as a professor of Anatomy.

Heather is a girl with dreams to be a good doctor, but lacks the spark. She has to really work hard and push herself to get her brain wrapped around what is being taught.

Abe, who looks like a hulk, a huge yet humourous guy, is one of her first friends. 

Ginny, the small, quiet little girl hardly speaks, but is good at what she studies.

Heather's roommate Rachel is least bothered about her own failures. But she does turn heads wherever she goes.

Mason, the guy who makes Heather go weak in her knees, an irritating know-it-all and a wannabe plastic surgeon, has secrets of his own.

And each one has a secret.

The story keeps shifting POV between these students and their professor, Dr Conlon.

The story is interesting. It is different from what I was expecting. Yet it was a nice change to read the story especially since it had rotating POVs. The character development is smooth. The sequence of events is well planned and organized by the author. 

I had once read about the Roshomon style of writing. Rashomon-style narrative allows the audience to see a single story through multiple lenses and get a multi-dimensional sense of characters based on the way their version of events unfolds. This felt something like that, and made it interesting.

The language flows easily, and though there is no shocking twist that you never saw coming, the book is full of small twists and turns that make us want to keep reading to know what happens next.

The cover page could have been better, with a hint of what to expect.

I rate it 4 stars.