Review: The Passenger

Author: Lisa Lutz 

Genre: Psychological Thriller.

Rating: 🍫🍫🍫🍫

Blurb:

In case you were wondering, I didn’t do it. I didn’t have anything to do with Frank’s death. I don’t have an alibi, so you’ll have to take my word for it...

Forty-eight hours after leaving her husband’s body at the base of the stairs, Tanya Dubois cashes in her credit cards, dyes her hair brown, demands a new name from a shadowy voice over the phone, and flees town. It’s not the first time.

She meets Blue, a female bartender who recognizes the hunted look in a fugitive’s eyes and offers her a place to stay. With dwindling choices, Tanya-now-Amelia accepts. An uneasy―and dangerous―alliance is born.

It’s almost impossible to live off the grid today, but Amelia-now-Debra and Blue have the courage, the ingenuity, and the desperation, to try. Hopscotching from city to city, Debra especially is chased by a very dark secret…can she outrun her past?

Cover Review:

The cover is absolutely gorgeous and so in tune with the story. I like to think that all those strips are in fact part of the different layers of Nora's identity. 

Book Review:

The Passenger was slow, spellbinding and the kind of book that keeps you waiting till the end, and then presents surprise after surprise. 

Nora's story begins with her second identity as Tanya Dunois and then progresses through a number of identities until it comes to a full circle with her real identity. 

Nora's story was chilling and heart wrenching. It was the kind of thriller that burns slowly and leaves you wanting for more. I really liked Nora's character, I felt like I went on an enlightening trip with her through this book. 

All in all, The Passenger was an unputdownable, irresistible read and I wish it hadn't ended so soon!

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Review: Knotty Affairs

Author: Chirag Bagadia.

Genre: General Fiction, Romance.

Rating: 🍫🍫🍫🍫

A land of countless customs, few things in India get bigger than a big fat wedding. A marriage is a celebration which brings families and friends together. And the ceremony ends with the tradition of the bride leaving her parents' home and moving in with her husband. The groom always has a choice-he can either stay with his parents or stay separately. However, for the bride her 'home' is now a strange place.

Meet Aakash, a young dental intern, who falls in love with Kashish. However, what he doesn't know is that winning her heart was never going to be easy. Kashish is resolute-nothing, not even their budding romance, will come in the way of her devotion to her parents.

Cut to four years later. Akash has fallen in love with Aneri, the only daughter of her parents. However, his father is clearly miffed by this development, and enlists the help of a psychologist friend to help Aakash. Furthermore, his father is also not surprised at the couple's request of entering into a live-in relationship before the marriage. But is Aakash ready to challenge the existing customs for his love? Is he prepared to go to any lengths to see that his love does not shed another tear?

Take this tradition-defying journey with Aakash, Kashish and Aneri as they dare to delve deeper into the web of love and relationships. Warm up to their crazy antics which will leave you wondering-why can't this be my story?!

The cover is cute, not exactly beautiful, but a good cover nonetheless.

Knotty Affairs was the story of a guy who was on the quest to find a perfect life partner. It was full of humour as well as much needed pondering over the age old customs Indian marriages and societies still follow. 

I loved the book because of its uniqueness and because someone finally went out there and said that it's NOT okay to force a girl to move out of her home when the boy clearly gets a choice. That's what made me like the book so much, more than anything else in the book. 

There wasn't much romance. There were love stories, sure, but only a few instances of romance, and that's why I'd shelve the book under general fiction rather than under romance.

Knotty Affairs was a fun, light read at first glance, but it also talked about much more serious topics that need talking about. 

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Review: Seduction by Truth

Author: Mukul Kumar.

Genre: Romance.

Rating: 🍫🍫🍬

Shiva is handsome, an irresistible talker, well-off, lives in Delhi's poshest suburb, is a dutiful husband to the attractive Akriti and is a perfect father to their little son. So why is he the picture of disenchantment?

Is it that not-so-uncommon human condition-boredom that sometimes accompanies fidelity-that haunts him? In Shiva's case, the discovery that Akriti has already found distraction with someone else frees him to look for excitement on his own-but with a mind conflicted between dharma and desire. Which is the path that he will choose to walk on?

Shiva embarks on a journey to empirically explore different options-the sexually vibrant Sana and Mary, to name a few-but at the end, winds up with more questions than he started out with. To confuse things further, Akriti continues to occupy a tender place in his heart-as a woman first and a wife later.

A slice-of-life tale, which is part reality and part legend, Seduction by Truth dares the modern reader to solve civilization's oldest puzzle-marriage.

The cover is intriguing, though even after reading the book, I've yet to understand its symbolism. 

Seduction by Truth was way different than what I'd expected. Reading the blurb, I'd assumed it was a quick romance read with a touch of adultery. 

But reading the book, I realized that it was way different. To me, the book seemed more like a thesis on Adultery than an actual story. It was full of mythological references regarding adultery. 

There was no depth to the characters, and all that happened in the story was Shiva cheated on his wife with three different women, and also spent the whole time thinking whether adultery is just or not. 

So as you can see, I was very disappointed with it. The 2.5 stars are just because atleast there weren't many grammatical errors to suffer through. 

If you're a huge mythological buff, I'd definitely recommend you to check this book out. Otherwise, I'm not so sure you'll enjoy it.

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