The Affair by Lee Child

Book Summary of The Affair
March 1997. A woman has her throat cut behind a bar in Carter Crossing, Mississippi. Just down the road is a big army base.Is the murderer a local guy - or is he a soldier?

Jack Reacher, still a major in the military police, is sent in undercover.The county sheriff is a former U.S. Marine - and a stunningly beautiful woman. Her investigation is going nowhere. Is the Pentagon stonewalling her? Or doesn't she really want to find the killer?

The adrenaline-pumping, high-voltage action in The Affair is set just six months before the opening of Killing Floor, and it marks a turning point in Reacher's career. If he does what the army wants, will he be able to live with himself? And if he doesn't, will the army be able to live with him? Is this his last case in uniform?

Another Chance by Ahmed Faiyaz

Book Summary of Another Chance
This is the story of a depressingly gorgeous woman, Ruheen Oberoi.

A fragile beauty brought up by her indulgent Nana in Shimla. A woman stalked by a violent, obsessive son of a powerful minister. A woman married to a junkie in London who spends his days on a Playstation. Her passionate lover, Aditya Sharma, a successful Brand Manager trying to strike the work-life balance, wants another chance with Ruheen in Amsterdam. So does her old flame and best friend Varun Shetty, a recovering alcoholic in Shimla, finding meaning in life. Malika, a seductress wronged by her cheating ex-husband, wants Ruheen’s Aditya instead. Who gets another chance? And with whom?

Urban Shots by Paritosh Uttam

Book Summary of Urban Shots
Edited by bestselling author, Paritosh Uttam, this is an anthology of 29 urban tales by 13 young writers. Each of these fresh, vivid and deceptively simple stories focuses on an epiphany. The stories are set with the backdrop of our urban metros with their bright lights, sky rises, glitzy malls, tenements, crowds and the chaos that comes with it. A woman tries to come to terms with loss of a lost baby; two strangers, a young man and a young woman, both with a love for Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment board the same aircraft; a woman ponders over giving a second chance to her cheating husband; a young man is in love with his apple pie loving best friend, who is set to marry through an arranged match; a chance meeting between two old lovers after 11 years; the memories of an old woman in love; an illiterate migrant from the village looking for her own kind of liberation; the longing of a married woman for another man; a child and his silent suffering mother and their financially strapped family; a couple once in love, frustrated with each other after getting married; love and relationships in the age of Twitter and fat free gelatos; the morning after for a couple in an adulterous relationship; a man running away from his own life in the city hoping to find salvation; a couple who decide to marry for reasons other than love and many more stories...

Chanakya's Chant by Ashwin Sanghi

Chanakya's Chant is a racy and gripping account on Chanakya, one of the greatest political strategists India has seen. The story changes track as it narrates the tale of Gangasagar Mishra, the reincarnation of Chanakya, in parallel. Will he be the next kingmaker?

Summary of Chanakya's Chant

Gangasagar Mishra, a denizen of a quaint old Indian town, is no ordinary man. Society sees him as a Brahmin teacher who can barely make ends meet, but he's the reincarnation of the man who brought the fragmented subcontinent together under a single empire – Chanakya.

Chanakya's Chant by Ashwin Sanghi gives its readers a look into two parallel worlds that are tied together by the intelligence of the main protagonists. The first story is set in 340 BC, when a young Brahmin man, fueled by the death of his father, vows revenge against the king and overthrows his rule by bringing in Chandragupta Maurya, the first emperor of the Maurya Dynasty.

The scene then shifts to modern day India, where Gangasagar Mishra leads his life as a nonentity – until he decides to groom an ambitious girl from Kanpur into India's prime minister.

Will Chanakya's manipulative mechanisms change the face of the nation again?

The book takes readers on a joyride through Chanakya's cold and calculating moves.

Chanakya's Chant was very well received by critics and readers. Renowned bureaucrat and writer Shashi Tharoor released the book in Mumbai and termed it a gripping and delightful read. The book is a historical account, but features many colloquial terms too.

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The Innocent by David Baldacci

Book Summary of The Innocent
A assassin with a mission. But whose side is he on?

Another action-packed thriller from one of the world’s most popular writers.

Back in DC after successful missions in Edinburgh and Tangier, assassin Will Robie sees his latest assignment, to eliminate a US government employee, go badly wrong. What had she done, or what did she know? Robie is now a wanted man.

But it seems that he’s not the only one on the run. Young teenager Julie Getty is devastated by the inexplicable murder of her parents in their home. Who wanted them dead, and why, is a mystery. But Julie is smart enough to believe that their killer will come after her. Robie and Julie meet when he saves her from an attempt on her life as they were trying to leave town.

The police investigating the hit start to take an interest in Robie. He’s particularly attracting the interest of Special Agent Nicole Vance, who believes that the two cases are connected. Robie finds himself in a dangerous position as he is tasked to investigate a crime at which he was present. Does he need to change sides to save lives – including his own?

11/22/63: A Novel by Stephen King

On November 22, 1963, three shots rang out in Dallas, President Kennedy died, and the world changed. What if you could change it back? Stephen King’s heart-stoppingly dramatic new novel is about a man who travels back in time to prevent the JFK assassination—a thousand page tour de force.

Following his massively successful novel Under the Dome, King sweeps readers back in time to another moment—a real life moment—when everything went wrong: the JFK assassination. And he introduces readers to a character who has the power to change the course of history.


Jake Epping is a thirty-five-year-old high school English teacher in Lisbon Falls, Maine, who makes extra money teaching adults in the GED program. He receives an essay from one of the students—a gruesome, harrowing first person story about the night 50 years ago when Harry Dunning’s father came home and killed his mother, his sister, and his brother with a hammer. Harry escaped with a smashed leg, as evidenced by his crooked walk.

Not much later, Jake’s friend Al, who runs the local diner, divulges a secret: his storeroom is a portal to 1958. He enlists Jake on an insane—and insanely possible—mission to try to prevent the Kennedy assassination. So begins Jake’s new life as George Amberson and his new world of Elvis and JFK, of big American cars and sock hops, of a troubled loner named Lee Harvey Oswald and a beautiful high school librarian named Sadie Dunhill, who becomes the love of Jake’s life—a life that transgresses all the normal rules of time.

A tribute to a simpler era and a devastating exercise in escalating suspense, 11/22/63 is Stephen King at his epic best.

Losing My Virginity and Other Dumb Ideas by Madhuri Banerjee

Kaveri is thirty, single, knows seven languages, is an interpreter by profession, has read all the books about men and how to get a date. Yet, she has not been able to figure out the language of love. Since the 'THE ONE GREAT LOVE' of her life has eluded her for thirty years and might never show up, she decides to take matters into her own hands. On her thirtieth birthday, she makes a resolution love or no love, she is going to lose her virginity. Life, however, has other plans!

Only Time Will Tell by Jeffrey Archer

Only Time Will Tell is the first book in Jeffery Archer’s five-part Clifton Chronicles. The story begins in the 1920s and provides snippets of pre-Second World War England as it chronicles the story of the protagonist, Harry Clifton.

Summary of Only Time Will Tell

Only Time Will Tell is a family saga that narrates the story of young Harry Clifton as he tries to find out the truth about his parentage. His mother, Maisie Clifton, had always told him that his father was a stevedore who worked in the docks and went missing. As a young boy, Harry Clifton accepts the story.

Harry is a gifted singer and he gets a scholarship to attend a prestigious prep school where he happens to meet the Barrington family. The Barrington heir, Giles, is Harry’s best friend, and his sister Emma Barrington becomes the love of Harry’s life. But Hugo Barrington, their father, is dead set against Harry’s friendship with his son and daughter.

Is it just a case of class conflict?

Or is there a deeper truth behind Hugo Barrington’s disapproval?

Even as Harry discovers the truth about his father’s death and his parentage, war breaks out between England and Germany and he sails out to sea. What happens next forms the crux of the story.

The book was a best seller, and it was released by the author himself in India. It was sold out on the day of its release.

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Can Love Happen Twice?

Can Love Happen Twice is a beautiful tale of love and its various facets. Starting off from the last page of Ravinder Singh's debut novel, this book takes you on a journey with its focus set on the million dollar question; ‘Can love happen twice?’

Summary of the Book

Does cupid strike just once, or can people fall in love all over again when they meet someone new?

This is the central theme that's explored in Can Love Happen Twice, Ravinder Singh's second novel.

Can Love Happen Twice takes the story forward from where the author's previous novel, I Too Had a Love Story, left its protagonists. The book traces Ravin's life after his success as a novelist, and he's invited, along with his friends, to a special Valentine's Day program in a popular radio station in Chandigarh.

As people across the country tune in to listen to his heartbreaking love story, the novel takes a stunning turn – Ravin doesn't show up during the program. His friends Manpreet, Amardeep and Happy read through Ravin's unfinished second book to find out where he is, and listeners from across Chandigarh are taken through an emotional ride when Ravin's next tryst with love comes to light.

Can Love Happen Twice is a clean and simple love story that was highly anticipated by readers after the success of Ravinder's first novel, I Too Had a Love Story.

The Secret Of The Nagas by Amish Tripathi

All hell breaks loose when Shiva tries to unravel the mystery surrounding the Nagas and their link with the Chandravanshis. The Secret of the Nagas continues the tale of Shiva and the Suryavanshis right from where The Immortals of Meluha left it.

The Secret of the Nagas is filled with intrigue and surprises, much like the previous installment, The Immortals of Meluha. The story kicks off with Shiva trying to decipher the motives of the Nagas, a race of deformed assassins who have killed his friend Brahaspati and are targeting his wife Sati. His path of vengeance leads him right to the land of the serpent race, where he needs to find the man who's the mastermind behind the elaborate attack planned on Meluha.

Shiva's journey throws many surprises at him, as he learns about the secret lying dormant in Maika, a city in Meluha where the newly-born are raised, and as his trusted advisors leave his side, fueled by darker motives.

Will Shiva uncover the truth and vanquish the Chandravanshis and Nagas?

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Last Man In Tower by Aravind Adiga

                                   

This is the third book by the author, his first one being ‘The White Tiger’ which won the Man Booker Prize in 2008. I had read this award winning book sometime last year and had enjoyed it. Though ‘Last Man in Tower’ explores a story in similar lines, I cannot say the same about this book. No doubt, it is a very well written and a well researched story but there is something about it being so pessimistic, that it kind of creeps on you and leaves you devastated in the end. I cannot help but do a small comparison of the two books I have read of the author.

The White Tiger was fast paced but Last Man is Tower starts slowly. The author has spent a good number of pages in painting – the characters,their emotions, pictures from their daily life, the surroundings and the overall atmosphere. It adds to ambiance in the novel but at some point it starts to creep on the readers. I felt, the book radiated many negative vibes and that is why it took me a long time to finish it. I have realized that what I read affects my moods and emotions in some way of the other and even after reading a few pages, I felt heavy and had to keep it aside. In ‘The White Tiger’protagonist was from the lowest strata of society and it was rich rags to riches tale. It dealt with how an honest person can get corrupt in the process of seeking power and money. Last Man in Tower is about the middle class people who are forever trying to elevate their status in society and when an opportunity knocks on their doors, they are ready to stoop as low as can be possible to avail of it, even if that involves sacrificing some one’s life! That is the cliche, as much as I can see that there is truth in the story, I don’t believe there cannot be exception to it.

Here is the blurb from the book:

Real estate developer Dharmen Shah’s offer to buy out the residents of Vishram Society—a formerly respectable, now crumbling apartment complex that abuts the infamous Dharavi slums—is more than generous. But one man stands in the way of Shah’s luxury high- rise: Masterji, a retired schoolteacher who will not leave his home in Vishram’s Tower A. Shah is a dangerous man to refuse, but as the demolition deadline looms, Masterji’s neighbors—friends who have become enemies, acquaintances turned co- conspirators—may stop at nothing to score their payday.

An electrifying, suspense-filled story of money and power, luxury and deprivation, peopled by brilliantly drawn, unforgettable characters, Last Man in Tower exposes the hearts and minds of the every men and women of a great, booming city—ordinary people pushed to their limits in a place that knows none.

With the real estate prices sky rocketing in India, there can be such instances but, is really all humanity wiped out of the Indian middle class? It is a powerful novel with a theme that is relatable in many ways but I do feel it paints a very wrong picture of Indian society, the middle class in particular. I didn’t really enjoy the book but I would not stop any one from reading it. It certainly left me squirming with uneasiness but it did me ample thoughts to ponder on!