Review: The Full Moon Bride

BY Guest Reviewer IN B+, Women's Fiction NO COMMENTS YET FingerPrint, Sobhan Bantwal

By Sobhan Bantwal. Grade: B+

Reviewed by Purnendu Chatterjee

‘The Full Moon Bride’ is the new novel by the variant writer Shobhan Bantwal. The protagonist is Siya, an Indian-American living in New Jersey. The author sets the tone of contrast perfectly when the story itself starts with Siya preparing for a bride-viewing ceremony as per strict Indian traditions.

The Full Moon Bride

“I’ve had it with your attitude, Siya. Go ahead, get on your high horse and stay there. I refuse to beg anymore. Goodbye.”

What makes a marriage? Love or compatibility? Passion or pragmatism? Shobhan Bantwal’s compelling new novel explores the fascinating subject of arranged marriage, as a young Indian-American woman navigate the gulf between desire and tradition.

To Siya Giri, arranged marriages have always seemed absurd.

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Review: Predator

BY Guest Reviewer IN A, Women's Fiction, Young-Adult NO COMMENTS YET

By Kartik Iyengar. Grade: A

Reviewed by Swati Sharma

When most of our time is spent engrossed in the online world, do we really realize the extent of risks involved?  Does the fact that we are accessing it from the safe harbors of our homes or offices really protect us from the dangers lurking on the other side of the screen?  Can we really picture the actual malice prevailing? Kartik Iyengar’s “Predator” is a book which very adeptly answers all these questions about the online world. It is a story which takes you into the darkest and nastiest pits of the online territory.  It shows how the smartest of people can naively fall prey to the vicious online predators.

Predator by Kartik Iyengar

It was the perfect evening.

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Review: Daughter By Court Order

BY Aparna Nagraj IN C, Women's Fiction NO COMMENTS YET

By Ratna Vira. Grade: C

Daughter By Court Order

A seemingly innocent remark over an innocuous cup of tea. Aranya discovers that her family has been fighting a decade-long legal battle over her grandfather’s expansive estate, all the while not only keeping her in the dark, but also keeping her very existence out of the court’s knowledge!

A cesspool of emotions, half-truths, betrayals, and the unspooling of long buried dirty family secrets threaten to overpower Aranya and disrupt what modicum of peace and balance she has in her life as a single mother of two children. At the centre of this storm is the one woman who, ever since the day Aranya was born, has had nothing but curses and abuses for her; who has deliberately kept her name out of the court; who has wished her dead for every day of her life; who refuses to now remember her birth.

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Review: Sita’s Curse

BY Shriya Garg IN C, Women's Fiction NO COMMENTS YET Erotica

By Sreemoyee Piu Kundu. Grade C

Sreemoyee’s latest explores a woman’s sexuality. Specifically, it explores a woman’s sexuality in the context of middle-class India. The last three words are important. If you’re the said middle-class Indian (and with our sheer numbers, it’s certainly possible), you’d know what I’m talking about. The author has already explained her stand in an interview. She says, and I quote, “My book is not an Indian version of 50 shades of Grey. It is not intended to titillate. Feminist erotica is about strong women having dialogues with themselves, discovering who they truly are.”

Sita’s Curse

Somewhere, behind closed doors, in her solitary world; Somewhere, under the sheets with an indifferent lover; Somewhere, is a woman who will not be denied…Trapped for fifteen years in the stranglehold of a dead marriage and soulless household domesticity, the beautiful, full-bodied and passionate Meera Patel depends on her memories and her flights of fancy to soothe the aches that wrack her body; to quieten an unquenchable need.

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Review: Until the End of Time

BY Vanathi IN B, Women's Fiction NO COMMENTS YET Danielle Steel

By Danielle Steel. Grade: B

Danielle Steel books are popular among many women for they tell a refreshing story that is mostly about a regular, next-door woman going through a rough patch in her life and how she beats all the odds, picks herself up, dusts herself and moves on. It is a very endearing feeling when you see a book’s lead character fight all odds because you want to be like them. But when an author uses the same plot with slightly different set up and different characters, it gets a little too predictable and that is precisely why I gave up on Danielle Steel books. After a longtime, I picked up this book expecting a change. But I was again disenchanted by this book.… Continue Reading?

Review: Boomerang

BY Shail Raghuvanshi IN A+, Women's Fiction NO COMMENTS YET Rajshri Raajgopal

By Rajshri Raajgopal. Grade A+

Sometimes, personal tragedy makes a person express himself/herself through the medium of the written word to exorcise ghosts of the past. Sometimes, one needs a creative medium to help heal one’s wounds. This is what the author of Boomerang does in the novel and well. With a sad and unbearable marital life in her past, Rajshri Raaajagopal has made a courageous effort to live life afresh with renewed vigour. And this is evident in her book, Boomerang.

Boomerang

Set in a scenic village on the outskirts of Trivandrum, the capital of Kerala, this is the story of the struggles of a woman in its hostile society. The journey of Anna through her battle for freedom from an unhappy household, her first love, a debilitating marriage and a stressful divorce shows the reader how difficult life is for a young woman even in this modern era.

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Review: The Diary of a Reluctant Feminist

BY Shriya Garg IN B, Satire, Women's Fiction NO COMMENTS YET Bhavna Bhavna

By Bhavna Bhavna. Grade: B

The problem is we’re stuck in a limbo. Between the old and the new. Between Bharat and India. Between the aged and the young. The generation gap is a mile long, with us not approving our parents, and our parents not approving us. And both of us feeling we’re right. The Diary of a Reluctant Feminist echoes this discord that every middle class child brought up watching America and the Evil West feels, especially in every conversation with her family.

The Diary of a Reluctant Feminist

“The problem is the small print in my struggle for a divorce, as with everything in my life, it always reads subject to my mothers permission and since my mother was not going to give me permission to divorce in a hurry, I was relegated to being an armchair divorcee.

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Review: Me And Mr. Jones

BY Indrani IN Women's Fiction NO COMMENTS YET

By: Lucy Diamond. Grade: B

Me and Mr. Jones

Loving is easy but loving the family never is. Lucy Diamond delves into the mystery of what makes a Family tick in her new book Me and Mr Jones.

She introduces a family business and four different women , dealing with their Mr Jones.Lillian and Eddie Jones the present owners of Mulberry House. They wonder if any of their three sons can take on the challenge of running Mulberry House for guests like they have done.Alicia, married to Hugh Jones is the perfect wife and mother till she feels her fortieth birthday looming.David Jones struggles with the loss of his job while his wife Emma is desperate to get pregnant.Finally it is Izzy, Isabel Allerton, running from her past and determined not to fall for the bad apple Charlie Jones.

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Review: The Sea of Innocence

BY Shriya Garg IN B, Women's Fiction 1 COMMENT Kishwar Desai

The Sea of Innocence

By Kishwar Desai. Grade B

Sea of Innocence is Desai’s third foray into the social-worker-cum-investigator Simran Singh series, and my first. The genre and cover intrigued me, but it was the blurb that shifted it to the top of my humongous to-be-read pile. Whether intentional or not, the author grabs immediate attention by referring to the brutal gang-rape of a young women in a public Delhi bus in December 2012. The wounds that instance inflicted on the millions of young woman around the country – including yours truly – are still fresh, and this came across as the proverbial hammer striking when the iron is hot.

Goa, south India. A beautiful holiday hideaway where hippies and backpackers while away the hours.

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Review: Faraway Music

BY Radhika IN B, General Fiction, Women's Fiction NO COMMENTS YET Sreemoyee Piu Kundu

By Sreemoyee Piu Kundu, Grade B

 

Travelling from the by-lanes of Kolkata, to enjoying the beautiful rains of Mumbai, to the harsh winters of Delhi, and finally to the plush penthouses of New York, Faraway Music is the story of an international bestselling author, Piya Choudhary. Traversing through the ups and downs of her life; finding and losing love, family and friends, Piya takes us through an enthralling journey of her life while unveiling it to a journalist on a flight from New York to Delhi.

Faraway Music

On a long-haul international flight, writer Piya Choudhary tells the one story she hasn’t yet told – her own…
Loved and indulged by her mother and grandparents, but haunted by the mysterious absence of her father, Piya grows up in Kolkata, a gifted and impetuous child who pursues her studies with the same passion as she does her adolescent crushes, until a salvage encounter leaves her repulsed.

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