Think with Me: Fundamentals of making our country ideal by Saharasri Subrata Roy Sahara

I received the book Think with Me: Fundamentals of making our country ideal by Sahararasri Subrata Roy Sahara as a review copy from the publisher Rupa publications and would like to thank them for the same.

The Blurb:

When we see the problems related to political leadership, population growth, education, the media and religion going from bad to worse, a natural question comes up in our minds. Where, after all, did we go wrong? What happened during our democratic journey of independent India that we are faced with nasty problems on all these fronts? Why couldn’t we teach people occupying places of responsibility that rights are given to perform your genuine duties, not to serve your personal whims, false ego and greed?”

It is the author’s firm belief that if the problems related to the above five fundamental issues continue to be as they are, the nation will be hit by a crisis of unimaginable proportions, our national edifice would crumble and everything that our leaders had valued and held sacred for the love of the country before independence, would be lost forever. So, the author, through a deep-seated and thought provoking commentary on these issues invites you to think along with him and ponder over them honestly and sincerely. While going through the book, you may come across points where you differ with the author but in the end, you will be convinced that to make our country ideal, the need is for a wider awakening on the issues as discussed in the book.

My take:

The author has discussed in detail five ‘problems’ that he feels our country is facing, namely, Electoral system & Leadership; Population; Education system; Media and Religion. He has formed certain ideas about each one of them and presented them in this book. He mentions that he expects that the thoughts and ideas that he has expressed in the book would compel the reader to ponder over them and eventually promote positive thinking in the readers.

He has written the book in simple English which is easy to understand. But the book makes the reader put on his thinking caps….

Disclaimer: I received a free copy of the book from the publisher in return for my honest review. I have NOT received any monetary compensation for the same.

 

Spotlight: Soulless by MV Kasi

 

 

 

SOULLESS

by

M.V.Kasi

 

 

 

Blurb

 

They say when you take revenge you lose a part of your soul. 

 

But Sia hadn’t felt her soul in a very long time. She only knew the soul-crushing fear and helplessness. Especially during the nights, when she fought an invisible enemy that terrorized her during the nightmares. 

 

Her days weren’t any better either. She spent most of them trying to desperately gain control of her life while battling her various fears and addictions. 

 

She was only twenty three, but she had resigned herself to live the rest of her life that way. Fearing the unknown. 

 

Until it all changed one day. 

 

Now she knew. She knew that the monster from her nightmares was real. And also that her soul had been ripped apart from her. 

 

The memories had brought in fear, rage and pain, along with a strong craving for a swift payback. 

 

But revenge was a dish best served cold. And it required a complete absence of emotion. 

So now? 

 

Now she plotted. And she schemed. She prepared herself in every possible way to hunt and destroy her enemy. 

 

But every mission, however well planned can go awry. Sometimes it’s because even though one can be soulless, there is always the heart. A very weak and desperate heart that was being stolen by a man. 

 

A man who was like a bright spark of vivid colors in her otherwise dark and dreary life. 

A man…who was only supposed to be collateral damage. 

Read an excerpt from #Soulless

 

“Need help holding the bag still?” a deep voice asked from behind her.

Sia yelped in surprise, hitting the kick-boxing bag accidentally, and had to jerk back, away from the heavy swinging bag. Her sudden movement dropped her phone from her hands onto the gym floor. She could see half a dozen pieces of what used to be her phone scattered around.

Shit. Most of her contacts were stored in that phone. Now she’d have to waste at least a couple of hours to buy a new one and retrieve her contacts list. But she had bigger worries, and a more immediate danger.

On instinct, she widened her stance, ready to swing around and kick the intruder in his face, either to dislocate his jaw or at least break his damn nose.

“Whoa, whoa, easy lady,” said a laughing man’s voice, moving away from her swing.

As soon as she turned around, the air left with a whoosh from her lungs. And it wasn’t because of her move. It was because of the face in front of her.

She kept staring at the amused boyish grin with twin dimples on the man’s face.

“That looks like one hell of a fall,” he said as he looked down at her broken phone.

Sia didn’t even bat an eyelid when the man knelt down and picked up the pieces.

“I think I can salvage this,” he murmured, and began to work on fixing her phone.

His eyes were focused on the job at hand and he had an intense look of concentration as he worked over her phone. Sia realized that she was gawking at a complete stranger like an idiot instead of demanding her personal property back.

“Wait, you don’t have to…” Her damn voice was soft and whispery as it drifted off.

The man looked up briefly at her and smiled.

That little stretch of his mouth muscles was causing havoc to her insides. And it wasn’t because of the panic she usually felt, it was because of the beautiful face in front of her. And it was having a strange effect on her.

What the hell was happening?

Her usual cold and aloof protective barrier was having a tough time emerging. Maybe because she felt a false sense of security around him, due to his blindingly good looks combined with the boy-next-door smile. But she wasn’t the type of woman who usually got affected by some pretty boy’s face. Then what the hell was so damn special about him?

It didn’t make any sense. He was just a guy. Weren’t they all the same? Yet somehow she felt a strange sense of connection with him. Especially with his smile.

You are just horny. You are a twenty four year old with a good imagination and a healthy sex drive. Yes. That must be it, she rationalized, looking at his ripped body that was barely concealed in his work-out shorts. He definitely must be one of the personal trainers at the gym. Maybe used to attract the female clients with his smile and body.

“Like what you see?” he asked, without raising his head. He was still working intently on her phone, but had a small smirk on his face.

At his teasing remark, she snapped out of whatever thing had possessed her.

What the hell was she doing? She asked herself again.

He’s just a good looking guy, and she’s seen, and also been with several guys who were similarly good looking.

“I think I can fix my phone by myself,” she said coolly, extending her hand as irritation slowly crept into her.

“I’m almost done. This is a newer model, so there are smaller parts that need to be placed in the right sequence. And besides, I caused you to drop it in the first place,” he said.

“True. But you have already done enough damage. Maybe next time, you should stop and think before sneaking up on the gym members, during the early hours of the morning.”

At her stern set down, he stopped what he was doing to glance at her.

His eyes blazed as he looked at her face, and then slowly, and unashamedly, he dragged his eyes down the length of her body, lingering on her toned arms and legs.

Instead of being offended, she felt his gaze ignite something. Soon, a warning siren went off in her head as images of them spending a dirty night ran in her mind.

Sia recoiled mentally from those images. She had stopped having random meaningless sex almost a year ago. And more recently, she had promised herself, she would not be distracted from her mission because of anything or anyone.

But right then, staring at the beautiful man with a sweet, melting smile, and a contradictory brazen look, she was ready to jump on him on the gym floor, and take what her body wanted from him.

Before she pounced on a complete stranger, Sia grabbed her phone from his hand, and took a few steps away from him to give herself some space. She subtly took some deep breaths to calm down even as his eyes continued to assess her.

When his eyes met hers, he smiled again. “By the way I’m Ajay, and you are…?”

Before she could reply another man’s voice interrupted them. “Good morning, Ajay. How have you been bro?”

A brief look of irritation passed on Ajay’s face, but he turned and smiled openly at the guy who joined them.

“I’m doing great Ravi. It’s been a while, and quite a set up you have here…”

Before he could finish catching up with the other guy, Sia began walking out from there. After collecting her water bottle and work-out towel, she moved towards the stairs, and glanced back briefly towards him.

He was still talking to the other man, but his eyes were on her, laughing at her in amusement. As though he knew she was running away because of him.

Dammit.

Grab  your copy @

 

Amazon.com | Amazon.in | Amazon.co.uk

Follow the Tour on Pinterest

 

 

 

About the author

 

 

 

 

 

By day, MV Kasi works for a software company. She currently lives in Hyderabad, India with her husband and son.

 

 

 

By night, she gives in to her fascination to explore the human psychology and the various facets of life in her writing. She has particular fascination with successful people who are not considered ‘normal’ by society’s standards.

 

 

 

 

Her love for reading has led her to start writing on her own. She likes to add depth to her characters and explore their psychological motivations. Due to the nature of topics and plots, she does not shy away from writing about sexuality or violence. Despite covering some heavy topics, she likes to infuse humor into her writing.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Stalk her @

 

 

 

           

 

   This Tour is Hosted by 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Facebook | Website | Blog Tours | Twitter | Linkedin

 

 

We Promote So That You Can Write 

The Peacock Feather by Sunil Kapoor and Sudhir Kapoor

The Peacock Feather by Sunil Kapoor and Sudhir Kapoor is a collection of ten short stories. I received the book as a review copy from the publisher, Rupa Publications and would like to thank them for the same.

The blurb:

The Peacock Feather is a collection of short stories that will keep the readers totally captivated and engrossed in its interesting storyline, replete with twists and unexpected turns. It explores a wide range of genres, each story having its unique characteristics.

From a bittersweet love story in ‘The Peacock Feather’; to a rags-to-riches story in ‘The Gutka King’; an engineer in the early part of the twentieth century determined to accomplish his mission against all odds in ‘The Accomplisher’; to addressing the issue of the dowry system in ‘The Bridal Gift’.

These stories take the reader through an emotional path, traumatic experiences and fraudulent maneuvers, which depict the true nature of the human beings with all their flaws and nuances. They are based on real life occurrences, albeit fictionalized, and interwoven with several interesting anecdotes.

The stories:

The first story talks about how meeting someone after many years bring back memories of a lost love and the second story talks about how a little boy who could barely get two meals in a day makes it big because of his hard work, perseverance and self-belief. The third story is about a girl who runs away from home to marry her boyfriend but ….. The fourth story is about how meeting someone in the line of work takes the protagonist on a mission. Suicide note is about people start to infer things without even bothering to check the facts and the next story is about four friends and their ambitions. A misplaced draft addresses the dowry demands in our country and the Wambesi Throne is about how a king finds a way to address the problems his country is facing. An accomplisher is about how grit and determination helps when we need to complete our work and the last story is about a family of Punjab.

My take:

The cover is beautiful and the book being hardbound makes it more beautiful. The stories have been written in simple English making them easy to understand. Though the stories are approximately fifteen to twenty pages long, still, the flow is such that they do not feel so long. As the authors have mentioned at the beginning of the book, these stories have been inspired by people from all walks of life, each of whom had a story to tell. The descriptions are beautiful, very easy to picturise. In the first story, when the author described Goa, I felt I was there and same was the case with Mussourie in the same story. It is Delhi in the third story and Kashmir in the fourth one. The fifth story describes Lucknow and the sixth, Bangalore and Malaysia and one story, Himachal Pradesh.

Most of the stories go into flashback and even then I did not feel that I was reading the flashback, the flow was so good

A beautifully written book which can be read one story at a time.

Disclaimer: I received a free copy of the book from the publisher in return for my honest review. I have NOT received any monetary compensation for the same.

Grow Up Messy by Paromita Goswami

Grow Up Messy by Paromita Goswami is the story of five year old Misry, whose father is an officer in the Border Security Force. Everyone calls her Messy and she does not like it. Superstar Amitabh Bachchan is her dream man. She always befriends children older than her own age and that too boys. She was born at her maternal grandfather’s form and spent the first two years of her life there surrounded by cousins, uncles, aunts and animals for company.

The Blurb (from Smashwords):

Childhood is considered to be the best time of one’s life. What if you get a chance to live it once more with a five-year-old?
Misry, a naughty five-year-old girl, lives with her parents in a B.S.F border outpost near Indo-Bangladesh border. But with no schools and friends she feels very lonely. She tries to befriend some local village kids. But they find her incompetent in their rural antics. They nickname her Messy as most of the time she messes up their plan. Can Misry really be a part of the gang?
Set in the early eighties, join Misry in the adventures of her life.

The story:

The story has been divided into three parts: first, when Misry’s family is living in West Bengal near the India Bangladesh border. She has no friends in the border outpost and makes some friends with the local children who live out of their campus. Her only friend is her cousin, Raju, who is visiting them with their aunt.

The second part is when they are back to the headquarters and she finds friends of her age group there and gets admitted to a school there. She is never short of children to play with and even gets into fight with them.

Then she has to leave for her grandparents’’ home in the village for her aunt’s wedding and has a lot of fun with her cousins.

My take:

The cover is very cute and gives an idea about the girl we are going to read about. All in all, the story is very cute, the author has really penned the book well and the concept is nice. Misry’s innocence is the mainstay of the book and also her antics. The language is simple and it should be easily understood by the age group that the book has been targeted at. All the characters are well developed and realistic and could be easily visualized. The fun and the activities Misry goes through have been beautifully described.

The use of Bengali terms makes the book all the more interesting. The author has added a vocabulary at the end of the book to explain the terms, making it easier for a non Bengali reader to understand the story better.

Loved the book immensely. Waiting for the next one in the Messy series.

Disclaimer: I received a free e-copy of the book from the author in return for my honest review. I have NOT received any monetary compensation for the same.

 

The Evil Twin? by P.G.Van

The Evil Twin? by P G Van is the story of Vinitha Raj, a girl of Indian origin who lives in the US with her aunt and cousin.

The blurb:

Vinnie lost her parents when she was ten and lives in San Francisco with her aunt and her teenage cousin. She never expected a simple act of kindness would be life altering. Reyan comes into her life threatening to shake up her focus and challenges her resolve. He is everything Vinnie wants in a man and he shows up just when she thought she had everything she needed to stay focused on her life and her goals.

Will he crack her titanium tough exterior and get to her heart? Will she let him into her life especially with what she has been through since she was ten? Will she trust Reyan to help her recover from her emotional wounds?

Will she get to the bottom of why people think they have seen her at places that she has never been to before. Does she have a doppleganger or a twin?

Follow Vinnie’s and Reyan’s love story as she learns the true meaning of love, trust and family.

The story:

Twenty three year old Vinitha Raj, Vinnie, lives in San Francisco with her aunt and cousin, Meghan, ever since her parents passed away in an accident when their car rolled off the highway, when she was ten. She works as a bartender at night and in Starbucks during the day for a living. She takes all responsibilities and her goal is to save up enough money so her aunt can start her business. Dave is her co-bartender and a good friend and Jason, the bar owner’s son likes her. She is surprised when random strangers address her as an acquaintance and one of them even calls her Nandi, a girl who had died in a car accident in India. She thinks they are confusing her for someone else and ignores them.

One day, when she is on the way back from work, she sees a car go off the road and calls 911. And even rides with the victim to the hospital and hands over his stuff to his friend when he comes to the hospital, all the while thinking that the victim and his friend are ‘partners’. The victim is twenty five year old Reyan Bhatia and his friend is Neel Shah, and their fathers are good friends. .

She meets Reyan again and they are attracted to each other instantly and have an affair. She even moves in with him but is scared if he would want her after he found out about the demons of the past. She had lost her high school boyfriend when he found out about her. What she does not know that he knows something about her past that even she does not.

My take:

The story has been written in first person from Vinnie’s point of view. Though the story is simple, it has lots of twists and turns. It has been written in a simple language which is easily understandable. The characters have been well developed and even the secondary characters like Annie, Neel, Meg, Chloe and other friends have a substantial role to play in the story. The book has an element of humour in it.

The relationship between Annie and Vinnie (the names also rhyme) has been beautifully depicted. I loved the soul sister part. Vinnie guessing the type of drink the customer wants is something that I have read for the first time in any book.

Why is the book called so? Read it to find out because that’s where it all lies.

The author is bold, I have to give her that.

Spotlight: THE EVIL TWIN? by P.G. Van

 

 

THE EVIL TWIN?

by

P.G. Van

 

 

Blurb

Vinnie lost her parents when she was ten and lives in San Francisco with her aunt and her teenage cousin. She never expected a simple act of kindness would be life altering. Reyan comes into her life threatening to shake up her focus and challenges her resolve. He is everything Vinnie wants in a man and he shows up just when she thought she had everything she needed to stay focused on her life and her goals. 

 

Will he crack her titanium tough exterior and get to her heart? Will she let him into her life especially with what she has been through since she was ten? Will she trust Reyan to help her recover from her emotional wounds? 

 

Will she get to the bottom of why people think they have seen her at places that she has never been to before. Does she have a doppleganger or a twin? 

 

Follow Vinnie’s and Reyan’s love story as she learns the true meaning of love, trust and family.

 

Grab the book @

Amazon India | Amazon USA

CHECK OUT OUR PINTEREST BOARD

About the author

 

 

 

 

P.G. Van

 

 

 

P.G. Van lives in San Francisco and she published her first novel, Destiny Decides… in October 2015 and cannot stop writing. She loves to spend time with family and is a strong believer of retail therapy (mostly shops for boots and purses!!). She enjoys giving her readers an escape to the world of love and romance.

You can stalk her @

 

 

       

PLAY THE GAME OF RAFFLECOPTER AND WIN $5 AMAZON GIFT CARDS ( FIRST 3 WINNERS) AND 7 COPIES OF A RECKLESS LOVE

a Rafflecopter giveaway

 

   This Tour is Hosted by 

Facebook | Website | Blog Tours | Twitter | Linkedin

We Promote So That You Can Write 

 

Cover Reveal: A Way Back Into Love by Veronica Thatcher

~ Cover Reveal ~

A Way Back Into Love by Veronica Thatcher

5th January, 2017

 

About the Book:

Nothing is perfect. Life is messy. Relationships are complex. Outcomes, uncertain. People, irrational. But love… Well, that makes complicates everything complicated. When you are caught in a tangled web of secrets, lies, and complex affairs, someone is bound to get burned.

Emily Stevens is a spunky, spirited college girl whose life is turned upside-down when she realizes she’s in love with her best friend of fifteen years, Derek Thorpe. As Emily prepares to confess her feelings to Derek, something happens one night which changes her life forever. Five years later, Emily finds herself in Boston, alone and heartbroken. Will she ever be able to forget the past? And what will she find when she returns home… to the man she left behind?
About the Author:

Veronica Thatcher is an exciting new contemporary romance author. Ever since she was very young, she’s dreamed of becoming a doctor when she grew up. While still forging ahead with that, majoring in pre-med in college, she unwittingly stumbled upon a new dream—becoming a published author. Some may call her an introvert or a wallflower, but she has always found she could express herself better in written, rather than spoken, words. However, never in her wildest dreams had she envisioned she would pursue writing as a prospective career, not just a hobby. Her love for writing goes hand-in-hand with her love for a good romance novel—whether it be a feel-good, sweet romance or a dark, suspenseful one. When she’s not studying, reading, or writing, she is usually found blasting her favourite songs, sometimes singing and dancing along to them.  She dabbles in a number of activities, including painting, karate, singing and dancing. She is a huge chocoholic – probably the biggest – and she is an ice-cream junkie too. She considers herself technologically handicapped forever and has no shame in admitting that. She also deems chocolates her boyfriend, Patrick Dempsey the love of her life, and Friends her life!

Her first book, A Way Back Into Love, is slated for release in February 2017, and she hopes readers will enjoy it as much as she enjoyed writing it. You can reach Veronica through Facebook, Twitter, Goodreads, Wattpad and Gmail.

Contact the Author:

FB Page * FB Profile * Twitter * Wattpad

 

Now I Love You, Now I Don’t by Shoma Narayanan

I received Shoma Narayan’s Now I Love You, Now I Don’t as a review copy from Rupa Publications. It is the story of Anjali and Zina. I would like to thank the publisher for sending me a review copy of the book.

The Blurb:

‘Umm, in case you’re wondering if I slept with your husband, no I didn’t,’ Zina offered. ‘He’s not my type.’

Now I Love You, Now I Don’t is the story of two very different women. Anjali is a traditional wife and mother. No one can guess that she and her husband have been estranged for most of their married life, and their reconciliation is a few fragile months old. Zina, on the other hand, is beautiful, ambitious and completely unscrupulous. Out for what she can get, she is perhaps more surprised than anyone else when she falls head over heels in love with a very unlikely young man. Anjali’s and Zina’s lives then get inextricably entangled by a series of events that follow.

Despite their initial dislike for each other, Anjali and Zina pull together when disaster threatens. But will they achieve their own happily ever after?

The story:

Having had to fend for herself ever since she was a kid, Zina moved to Mumbai to work as a hair stylist and a model and met Shiven Dhaliwal, a criminal lawyer. She runs away from the wedding, picks up her stuff from her landlady’s house and moves in with Sushil Dubey, whom she met in a pub. Shiven keeps persuading her by pudding hoardings on buildings declaring his love for her and asking her to marry him.

Sushil is married to Anjali and they have a twelve year old daughter, Gayatri.  They have been estranged for the last ten years when Sushil moved to Saudi Arabia and she stayed back in Indore with her father and daughter and taught chemistry in a college. Deven Khatri, a professor at the college, wants to be more than friends with her, but she is not interested. Then one day, Sushil comes to Indore and wants Anjali and Gayatri to move with him to Mumbai where he now works.

Before Anjali and Gayatri come to Mumbai, Sushil has to either move out of the current flat or ask Zina to move out before they come to stay with him. Sushil moves to an upscale apartment in Mahalaxmi and Anjali and Gayatri join him and Gayatri gets admitted into a good school.

One day, Zina goofs up in her salon and her boss, Rehan, makes her go and apologise to the client and on the way back, she gets stuck in a lift and who saves her, the Dubey family. Zina introduces herself to Anjali as Sushil’s roommate.

Will Anjali ever know the relationship Zina and Sushil shared? Will Anjali and Gayatri be able to adjust in Mumbai? What about Zina?

Read on….

My take:

I loved the story. The simple plot has been written very well, with excellent descriptions, in a simple language. The characters have been developed well and are very realistic. The conversations between the characters have been depicted well. The teething problems Gayatri has in her new school are very realistic.

The story moves fluently between the characters and also at a fast pace with twists and turns. The author has beautifully portrayed the relationship between Anjali and Sushil with doubts and suspicions and also that between Anjali and Gayatri.  The secondary characters also have substantial roles to play in the story.

A little bit of editing needs to go in further especially, Anjali’s father’s surname, Mishra or Sharma and Shiven’s surname Patil or Dhaliwal.

A nice, light read. Highly recommended.

Disclaimer: I received a free copy of the book from the publisher in return for my honest review. I have NOT received any monetary compensation for the same.

It’s All in the Planets by Preeti Shenoy

It’s All in the Planets by Preeti Shenoy is her latest book. It is the story of Aniket, Trish, Nidhi and Manoj and deals in relationships.

The Blurb:

Meet Aniket Twenty-seven techie Mr. Average. His best friend is Subbu a nerd who breathes thinks and lives code. Aniket cannot believe his luck when he starts dating Trish a stunning sexy model who is totally out of his league. But Trish has a list of things she wants him to work on beginning with his pot belly and his geekiness. Then there’s Nidhi thirty-four who has quit her corporate job to follow her passion. She is engaged to Manoj Mr.Perfect except for one aspect. Aniket and Nidhi meet on a train a chance encounter and she agrees to become his relationship coach. It’s a decision that sets into motion a chain of events that will have a profound impact on the lives of all involved. One man two women and the trap called Destiny. Some things they say are all in the planets.

The story:

Twenty seven year old Aniket is a techie who works for Connect Technologies in Bangalore. Subbu is his wingman, his relationship philosopher, his guide and now his therapist. He is in love with Trisha, a model who works in his company. She wants more, even give him a list of things to do, like cultivate a hobby, and lose weight among other things. She goes for a trek and Aniket goes to Chennai to meet his parents and sister.

On the train from Bangalore to Chennai, he meets thirty four year old Nidhi, an MBA from Bangalore who has left her corporate job after six and a half years and is now a content writer for a website, teaches pottery course at a studio in Bangalore and also blogs @A Pot of Clay that holds Gold. She is on the way to meet her father and step-mom, Tara in Chennai. She is very close to Tara who is her confidante and friend. She is engaged to Manoj and wants him to understand her instead of forcing his opinion on her.

During the journey, Aniket and Nidhi become friends and Aniket tells her about Trisha’s list and how he wants to impress her. They meet again and Nidhi gives him advice on health and relationships and he appoints her his relationship coach.

What happens next…….

My take:

The story is simple and revolves around relationships between the main characters and also around supporting characters. The characters have been developed well and are relatable. Even secondary characters like Tara and Subbu have a role to play in the story. The language is simple and the flow is good. The descriptions are detailed and can be easily visualized. The author has described emotions like parental love, friendship, modern relationships, family values, romance and break up amongst many emotions in the book. the relationship between tara and Nidhi and Subbu and Aniket has been beautifully portrayed.

Each chapter is named after Aniket or Nidhi and that chapter has been written from that particular character’s point of view. There is a small daily forecast written for the sun sign of the character at the beginning of the chapter. As the chapters were written from the perspective of two characters, it tended to confuse me a bit as some scenes got repeated.