Book Review : The Nurse

Blurb view:

Someone is watching her. She just doesn’t know it yet.

Nell Sweeney has led an ordinary life. Every day she walks to and from the hospital where she works as a nurse, believing that no harm can befall her.

Until one day she is taken.

Because someone out there has a secret. Someone out there has been watching Nell – and they’ve been watching others like her too.

Nell is the unlucky one – she was in the wrong place at the wrong time. And if she isn’t found soon, someone will make sure that she isn’t the last woman to disappear…

Review :

Dark. That is the first word which instantly pops up after I have read ‘The Nurse.’ It had started well when I began reading this one a few months ago, courtesy Netgalley UK. But I had to take a break in reading just while I was warming up to Nelle’s disappearance in the story. It was an unintended break, more like a reading slump or block. I can assure you that a reader’s block is as real as a writer’s block. The best of books cannot, at times, pull the reader back into the orbit of good reading. Rather, it takes a good hour or two or three of unadulterated and undisturbed dousing into the story.

‘The Nurse’ is Nelle’s story – of her disappearance and the mystery behind it – but it is also Marian’s story.

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Book Review : The Queen’s Spy

Blurb view:

1584: Elizabeth I rules England. But a dangerous plot is brewing in court, and Mary Queen of Scots will stop at nothing to take her cousin’s throne.

There’s only one thing standing in her way: Tom, the queen’s trusted apothecary, who makes the perfect silent spy…

2021: Travelling the globe in her campervan, Mathilde has never belonged anywhere. So when she receives news of an inheritance, she is shocked to discover she has a family in England.

Just like Mathilde, the medieval hall she inherits conceals secrets, and she quickly makes a haunting discovery. Can she unravel the truth about what happened there all those years ago? And will she finally find a place to call home?

Review:

Let me start with the cover – it is stunning! Kudos to the cover designer for this one.
I’m a fan of historical fiction, especially those across various era and kingdoms all around the world. The Queen’s Spy dallies between the Tudor period and present era. This one specifically fascinates me – the cold war between cousins – Queen Elizabeth I and Mary of Scots.
Clare Marchant begins her story in 1584, about a displaced man, Tom Sutton, scurrying from place to place for work and shelter. He had the talents of a herbalist/pharmacist and the disability of being deaf and mute. How and what he does for the Queen makes for an inimitable plot. The other track is in Norfolk in 2021 and talks about Mathilde, another displaced soul, similar to Tom. She finds her long lost family and a special heritage in her inheritance that changes her life.

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Book Review : The Last Letter From Your Lover

Blurb view:

When journalist Ellie looks through her newspaper’s archives for a story, she doesn’t think she’ll find anything of interest. Instead she discovers a letter from 1960, written by a man asking his lover to leave her husband – and Ellie is caught up in the intrigue of a past love affair. Despite, or perhaps because of her own romantic entanglements with a married man.

In 1960, Jennifer wakes up in hospital after a car accident. She can’t remember anything – her husband, her friends, who she used to be. And then, when she returns home, she uncovers a hidden letter, and begins to remember the lover she was willing to risk everything for.

Ellie and Jennifer’s stories of passion, adultery and loss are wound together in this richly emotive novel – interspersed with real ‘last letters’.

Review:

Shouldn’t there be a way to read an author’s works chronologically? I discovered Jojo Moyes and her writing via ‘Me Before You,’ (2012) and going backwards, have just read ‘The Last Letter From Your Lover,’ (2008). When you have already read the bestseller by an author, made into a motion picture and liked the book too – expectation levels are set high for all of their previous books too. I was disappointed with ‘The Peacock Emporium,’ (2005) when I read it this year. So, it is best to accept that a writer you like has written in various styles throughout their career.

‘The Last Letter From Your Lover’ is probably a little mis-titled. It sets a certain conjecture even before the story begins. There must be a pair of lovers then and parting, since the title mentions ‘the last letter’. Understandably, the novel starts with Jennifer having lost her memory post an accident. The year is 1960 and she discovers that she has a husband but with zero recollections of his existence. She begins a new life of discoveries from the hospital and regains just flashes of a lost love, a lover, a longing that cannot be explained when she looks at her husband Laurence. She finds a letter that might take her back to her lover, a certain ‘B’ who signs the letter without his name. Cut to 2003 – Ellie, a struggling journalist finds this letter in her office archives and is set on an impossible journey to find what happened to Jennifer and B.

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Best Reads of 2020

It has been a concern to me that my reading capabilities actually diminished in 2020. While others have been gloating on how they had gained immense time during the pandemic to read, I hadn’t. And felt a little sad about it. I have read only 20 books in 2020. But then, I did a bit of embroidery too and that had eaten up quite a few hours. Overall, it is probably balanced, but I’d loved to have read more. The ones I loved are here:

The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle – By Stuart Turton

The first book I read in 2020 was amazingly hyped as one of the most interesting books of the previous year. Having won the Costa Book Awards 2018, it seemed endlessly intriguing. And I hadn’t been disappointed at all. There is quite a bit of convoluted plotting and organising the chapters according to the ‘lives.’ What amazed me was a few reviews that said they didn’t like the book because it was ‘too complicated.’ And here I am, looking around for more books like this! I loved the writing style – it had the elite 19th century touch, the characters that were as varied as chalk and cheese, and the surprise value in the plot. The only thing I didn’t like was the rushed climax. Nonetheless, this was one of the best and even better than Turton’s second book ‘The Devil And The Dark Water,’ which failed to be in this list. Detailed review here.

The Girl You Left Behind – By Jojo Moyes

Let’s admit that I love historical novels, especially ones with multiple timelines, also ones that dabble into art, more importantly, in world war art and their reclamation. Those are a lot of genres criss-crossed into a beautifully poignant novel – The Girl You Left Behind. The portrait of an extraordinary woman transcends decades and creates a powerful impact into another woman’s life from falling apart. There’s provenance that lead to dark secrets and unpleasant people, a fair bit of love and lots of grit and determination from all the women characters. It was a treat to read and I’ve found one of my favourite sub-sub-genre of historical-war-art-fiction. Detailed review here.

A Suitable Boy – By Vikram Seth

The talk of the town, the crème-de-la-crème of last year’s big budget blockbuster BBC-Netflix movie adaptation was my longest read of the year (obviously for it’s sheer volume of 1500+ pages). I love Vikram Seth. I have loved his poems and his delicately penned novel ‘An Equal Music.’ This was on my TBR since long and the fat book now lies in my bookshelf back in India. So, the Kindle version came to rescue and I wanted to read it before the tv series premiered. Not that it made any difference as I haven’t watched the series yet. I can only say that it takes some sensibility to grasp the equations between the characters and their relationships in this labyrinth of a book. It’s not easy and it’s lengthy – two factors deterrent for the current young generation to appreciate this beauty of a novel. I haven’t found many who have read it entirely, mostly because of lack of patience; the others have shelved it as they were bored by a few parts. And then, the tv/web series made it easier to DNF the voluminous book and just focus on the abridged, minified, dancing, colourful frames that you don’t have to visualise. It took me time too, since my attention span seems to falter these days, but it was worth. Detailed review coming soon.

Troubled Blood – By Robert Galbraith

It’s no longer a mystery that Robert Galbraith is J.K.Rowling’s pseudonym for the Cormoran Strike series. And I had written earlier about why I love this series. ‘Troubled Blood’ is #5 in the series and has evolved a lot from how it began. Strike and Robin have progressed in their lives in strange ways, mostly for the better, their cases have turned more complex, clients more eccentric, but the serial killer factor remains constant and is well portrayed in this novel. I should warn that if you’re looking for a racy thriller, this isn’t the one. Stretched over 40 years and quite a few characters, plots and sub-plots (including Strike and Robin’s personal lives), it’s a huge drama that unfolds in many acts. Yes, they do catch a serial killer but get into a lot of other things too. At times, I felt that Rowling has probably added too many elements in the soup – there are social issues, gender biases, domestic violence, generation gaps and a lot more. It turns a little overwhelming but if you love the main duo, you’ll love their stories as well. Detailed review coming soon.

Have you read any of these in 2020? Let me know your thoughts and we’ll share our views. Have a great 2021 and the decade ahead!

Why I Love The Cormoran Strike Series

I had first known about the Cormoran Strike series when the controversy broke out about J K Rowling writing under a man’s pseudonym, Robert Galbraith. I’m not sure if her social experiment of using the pseudonym worked. She wanted to see if readers go gaga over the novel written by an unknown author called Robert Galbraith. Since the name ‘Rowling’ has been associated with Harry Potter, she wanted to be accepted as a good crime writer, for adults. It’s not surprising that an author of such a popular stature as her would be insecure about being accepted as a crime writer. It happens to the best and arguably, she’s one of the best in last two decades. I guess, the fact about the pseudonym was leaked even before ‘The Cuckoo’s Calling’ (2013) could reach a lot of readers for the survey based on its quality. Post that, all hell broke loose and the book rode its success on the cause célèbre.

The first striking fact about this unusual detective called Cormoran Strike is his physical disability. There probably hasn’t been a popular detective in literature with a prosthetic leg, facing hundreds of hurdles everyday, trying to get over his girlfriend of sixteen years and setting up a detective agency with minimal capital. Strike was in the army and lost his leg in an explosion in Afghanistan. Strike is an odd bloke, originally from Cornwall, brought up sporadically in London and with almost no family. I like the way he handles life. He’s not perfect, barely scraping through, he’s not a successful happy-go-lucky-rich guy with amazing relationships. He’s candid about the fact that he has met his biological father only twice in life. He’s tender about his now-dead-mother, an addict and an irresponsible adult who couldn’t take proper care of his children. And yet, Strike doesn’t hate her. After all these years, still doesn’t hate when others would. He feels an indistinct tenderness for his mother, rarely though, in parts, mostly because he feels that she could have had a better life.

I love Strike, but I probably love his secretary-turned-business partner Robin Ellacott more. Robin is one of my favourite women in contemporary fiction. She seems vulnerable when the series began; engaged to her high school sweetheart and with a dark past that Strike didn’t know about. You almost tend to feel sorry for her when she joins Strike as a temporary office staff in the first novel. And yet, she’s not a weakling. I love the ways in which she redeems her life and rises from the ashes. From being an emotional wreck to liking her job and excelling at it, from threading together her relationships to finally standing up for herself against deceit – Robin has done it all and emerged as a very strong woman who can kick a few arses.

I have read the previous four books in the series and am now reading the latest ‘Troubled Blood’. Strike and Robin have come a long way since they had began their journey and there’s a promise of another stellar, layered and epically huge novel of 944 pages. I’m looking forward to read and find out the mystery behind the disappearance of Dr. Margot Bamborough in 1974 that Strike and Robin are investigating at present.

I am taking my blog to the next level with Blogchatter’s #MyFriendAlexa.

With the advent of this wonderful #MyFriendAlexa campaign, I hope to take my rank to a whole new level and in the process enjoy reading a lot of beautiful blogs. My reading hashtag is #ReadByPRB, and writing is #PRBWrit. Do follow and let’s connect on Twitter?

Book Review : Mr. Eashwar’s Daughter

Blurb:

A modern retelling of Jane Austen’s classic novel, Persuasion. Eight years ago, family pride and an obstinate father had forced Anamika Eashwar to let go of the love of her life. Now he’s back again, a decorated captain of the Indian Navy. Will life offer her a second chance?

Review:

Honestly, I haven’t read Jane Austen’s ‘Persuasion,’ the classic on which ‘Mr. Eashwar’s Daughter’ is based. Starting on a clean slate probably fared better for me since there wasn’t any scope of comparison or evaluation of the modern retelling. I’d rather share my two pence on ‘Mr. Eashwar’s Daughter,’ by the inimitable Debeshi Gooptu.

The story begins at the palatial but dilapidated Eashwar estate, with the landlord Wriddhish Eashwar struggling at his finances but too proud to admit his mistakes. Of his three daughters, Anamika is the most sensible and bright, a perfectly likeable Jane Austen heroine. She’s trying to hold the family together, silently, and prevent her patriarch from crumbling. With support only from her aunt, she takes a few steps, including a huge one of renting their estate in the hills and moving to an apartment in Calcutta. Fate takes her to Gurgaon and a chance meeting with her former love leads to further turmoils in her heart.

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Book Review : The Murder In The Rain

Blurb:

When 27-year-old Kush Singh’s domestic help Leena is accused of murdering her husband, the ill-tempered inspector wants to see her imprisoned. Struggling to cope with a fall-out with his wife, a distracted Inspector Singh aka KP turns a deaf ear to Leena’s pleas. A corpse in a gunny sack, a besotted lover, a bankrupt businessman, and a group of agitated employees add to the complications of this mysterious case. Will Singh be able to investigate objectively and get justice for the victim? Set in Mumbai, The Murder in the Rain is a fast-paced thriller introducing the erratic Inspector KP Singh.

Review:

A grumpy but super intelligent police inspector, a corpse within a gunny sack in a pond, a twisted plot, illegitimate liaisons, high flying ambitions and a thriller set in Mumbai. How else to begin the festive season, if I may ask?

Moitrayee Bhaduri is an accomplished writer of the ‘Mili Ray’ series of detective books. I’ve read one of them, ‘Who Killed The Murderer?’ and had liked it much. This prompted me to pick up ‘The Murder In The Rain,’ first of a ten parts ebook series by Moitrayee, involving a new protagonist – Inspector K P Singh. I must mention that I loved Mili Ray as a detective because she was such a layered and mysterious character, nonetheless, the rare female detective in Indian fiction. While I was hoping to read more of Mili Ray books, here comes the new one, Inspector K P Singh. Why not read this series of ten mini thrillers and find out what K P Singh is all about, while I wait for more of Mili Ray stories.

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Book Review : All The Bright Places

This review was published in The Buzz Magazine

Blurb View:

Theodore Finch is fascinated by death, and he constantly thinks of ways he might kill himself. But each time, something good, no matter how small, stops him.

Violet Markey lives for the future, counting the days until graduation, when she can escape her Indiana town and her aching grief in the wake of her sister’s recent death.

When Finch and Violet meet on the ledge of the bell tower at school, it’s unclear who saves whom. And when they pair up on a project to discover the ‘natural wonders’ of their state, both Finch and Violet make more important discoveries: It’s only with Violet that Finch can be himself – a weird, funny, live-out-loud guy who’s not such a freak after all. And it’s only with Finch that Violet can forget to count away the days and start living them. But as Violet’s world grows, Finch’s begins to shrink. How far will Violet go to save the boy she has come to love?

Review:

Did you know somebody committed suicide every 40 seconds somewhere in the world?

In most cases, they don’t leave any clue that could lead to a reason for their actions. It may be love, it may not be; it may be failure, and extreme ones at that; it may be Monophobia (that’s an easy one – just seclude ‘mono’, pun intended). We are yet to judge if suicide is right or wrong, since it is relative. But the grief it leaves the loved ones with is irreplaceable. Now don’t let this deter you from reading further, we are indeed talking about a love story, though it’s much more than just that.

Theodore Finch and Violet Markey meet under ‘extenuating circumstances,’ on the ledge of their sixth storey school bell tower. We’ll keep the ‘who-saved-whom’ for later, for you to read the book yourself. It just so happens that both of them meet at a time when their own lives were shrouded by the cloud of ‘extenuating circumstances.’ Violet had lost her sister to an accident, and Finch (as even I began to fondly refer him) was going through a lot of trauma. They met, and gradually started to peel the layers off each other. They embarked on a journey together, and their pit stops are beautifully designed to be etched in memory forever.

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Book Review : The Girl You Left Behind

Blurb:

What happened to the girl you left behind?

France, 1916.

Sophie Lefevre must keep her family safe whilst her adored husband Edouard fights at the front. But when she is ordered to serve the German officers who descend on her hotel each evening, her home becomes a place of fierce tensions.

And from the moment the new Kommandant sets eyes on Sophie’s portrait – painted by Edouard – a dangerous obsession is born, which will lead Sophie to make a dark and terrible decision . . .

Almost a century later, and Sophie’s portrait hangs in the home of Liv Halston, a wedding gift from her young husband before he died. A chance encounter reveals the painting’s true worth, and its troubled history.

A history that is about to resurface and turn Liv’s life upside down all over again . . .

In The Girl You Left Behind two young women, separated by a century, are united in their determination to fight for what they love most – whatever the cost.

Review:

I love art and fiction. But I’ve actually read only a handful of art fiction. There are a lot of criteria – if the story is entirely based on a piece of art or involves a historically known artist or if it’s a biography of an artist. Not delving so deep into categories, I perceived ‘The Girl You Left Behind’ as an art fiction since it involves a painting as the seed of the story. I had read the famous ‘Me Before You’ and the others in the series and was might impressed with the first one. I wanted to read some more by Moyes and picked this Historical. The premise of a Historical during WWI France is super interesting in its own merit; adding cherry to the cake is a post-impressionist French painting as the cynosure of all activities in a century.

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Book Review : The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle

Blurb:

Tonight, Evelyn Hardcastle will be killed … Again

It is meant to be a celebration but it ends in tragedy. As fireworks explode overhead, Evelyn Hardcastle, the young and beautiful daughter of the house, is killed.

But Evelyn will not die just once. Until Aiden – one of the guests summoned to Blackheath for the party – can solve her murder, the day will repeat itself, over and over again. Every time ending with the fateful pistol shot.

The only way to break this cycle is to identify the killer. But each time the day begins again, Aiden wakes in the body of a different guest. And someone is determined to prevent him ever escaping Blackheath…

Review (*spoiler-free):

As it appears in the image, I read ‘The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle’ by Stuart Turton and not ‘The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle’ apparently. It seems that I read the British edition, hence the difference in titles. Nonetheless, it doesn’t matter much as long as Evelyn Hardcastle dies more than seven times! This is the author’s debut novel and it turned out to be a mighty impressive one, winning the Costa book awards in 2018! It took him more than two years to write the book and I think that’s pretty justified, given the complex plot and characters. You have to render your utmost attention while reading every chapter as they depict the same day over again but from eight different perspectives.

The story is about solving Evelyn Hardcastle’s murder, in a mansion near to a forest in Britain, amidst a party, set around 1920s. As the blurb says, Aiden Bishop wakes up in the body of eight different guests and relives the same day over. His task is to find out who wants to murder Evelyn Hardcastle in lieu of his freedom from Blackheath, the mansion. There’s Aiden, the mysterious Anna, Evelyn and eight other hosts – a corsage of peculiar characters with secrets of their own. There’s love, murder, plots, lords, a potential marriage, a not-so-forgotten death and deceit. There’s also this fantastical phenomenon of time loop – reliving the same day, and body swapping (well, not exactly). It’s a whirlwind, really.

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