Blurb View:

Eight years ago, she was the teenager he would use to get out of boring parties. But now, he is stunned to see her grown up.

He decides to delay his marriage by getting into a false engagement with her. Then he falls in love with someone else and she forces him to move on. He comes back to her, but she’s determined not to take him back. Will she ever get over her unrequited love for him?

Would a grand gesture from him make her believe otherwise?

And how do you know that your knight in shining armour has been standing right next to you?

Join Tanveer ‘Veer’ Bhattacharya and Larissa ‘Jasmine’ Chakraborty as they embark on a journey which questions relationships, friendships and makes one wonder… how long would it take for love to eventually find a way?

Review:

To be very honest, what attracted me to this novel is definitely not the cover, which seemed pretty teenage at first look. Ah well, its a fairy tale, which then justifies the dreamy cover. What lured me was the unusual fusion of the protagonist names. Surely, very few people in my generation are called Tanveer Bhattacharya or Larissa Chakraborty. A quick look at the author bio revealed her student status and I was interested to know about the Veers and Jasmines of the second decade into this millennium.

The story begins interestingly as the blurb promises. Tanveer and Larissa meet after eight years and rediscover their so-called acquaintance. It is a complex story, then. Both the protagonists fall in and out of love with each other. The characterization is easy, though the situation might seem complex to some of the readers.

The ‘in-love’ and ‘out-of-love’ sequences are portrayed very well. The confusion comes out pretty clearly and is intertwined again to further confuse readers. The peripheral characters are sketched well too.

Aniesha shows a lot of promise through her writing. Although she was only a student while she wrote the book, it is not particularly limited to being a ‘Young Adult’ love story. There are more layers to the plot, and moments that let you ponder on your own life. All of us have fallen in love already, haven’t we? Relive the journey through Tanveer and Larissa (I particularly liked the latter). I did like the language in which this book is written, the finer nuances of life in Calcutta, incorporating the quintessential Durga Puja which the Bongs cannot do without.

I would certainly look forward to the next book by Aniesha, (just hoping that she would venture into other genre with as much finesse as she did with Romance).

My Rating: 4/5

About the Author:

Aniesha Brahma currently a Masters student in Jadavpur University, is pursuing a degree in Comparative Literature. She was born and brought up in Kolkata, West Bengal. She is an ex-student of Dolna Day School, where she first discovered her passion for writing. She firmly believes that anything is possible if you put your mind to it, and ‘you should never give up on the one thing that you cannot go a day without thinking about’. She likes making movies on Windows Movie Maker, dabbling in arguments on the online writing communities and in between is learning to play the guitar. Also, she is incredibly fond of the rain, hanging out with her group of friends and is always looking for different kinds of stories to tell the world.

The Secret Proposal is her debut novel. She writes at Aniesha’s Musings.

Book Details: 

Language: English,  Genre: Fiction/Romance

Author(s): Aniesha Brahma

Publisher: General Press, Year Published: 2012

Binding: Paperback, Edition: First, Pages: 208

ISBN-13: 9789380914237, ISBN-10: 9380914237

Reviewed for: Author

This review is also shared with the Indian Quills Reading Challenge  and Debut Indian Writers Month – Readathon 3 at The Tales Pensieve.