Knitted Tales - Review

Rubina Ramesh is usually very visible on social media as a marketeer and an entrepreneur promoting books. In the book "Knitted Tales", she takes off the hat of reviewer, entrepreneur and digital marketing strategist and instead dons the hat of a writer. After all despite all her other roles, at heart she is an author. This I think is important from the view of her other roles as well. I always believe one has to be really passionate and sincere about the product for one to be a good marketeer or an entrepreneur.

Without much further ado, let me get into the book. Let me go step by step - first the cover, the title and blurb. The cover image is quite intriguing and draws a reader's attention. The title is again quite an interesting one - knitted tales gives an impression of the stories being a labor of love which is what they are. The blurb gives intriguing tit bits from some of the stories making the reader curious and wanting to know more. So far so good. Coming to the stories themselves, they are a pretty good collection with a good variety. We have a couple of paranormal ones, a couple of mystic ones, a few tragic dramas, a few clever tales and a few innocent feel good drams thus covering a whole gamut of emotions. The overall language is good and the book is well edited. The stories are short and none of them meander needlessly. Overall the book makes quite an effortless read.

Now let me go over the stories one by one in the order of my preference starting with the ones I liked most towards the ones I liked least.

Cliff Notes - An interesting tale told from the point of view of cliff. A kind of mystic tale that winds down to a poignant end exposing the darker side of humanity.

Betrayal - A crime thriller of sorts that keeps the reader on the tenterhooks 

The Little Godmother - This story scores for the sheet innocence of it all.

No Regrets - A clever tale with an interesting twist in the end

Lolita - Playing upon the more popular novel with the same name, Rubina manages to weave together a poignant narrative.

The missing staircase - A surreal kind of a tale with a fitting end.

Daddy, hear me out - An evocative portrayal of a school girl's emotions regarding her career.

Suvarna Rakha - A cliched beaten tale embellished with mythic elements and certain element of surprise to make it an interesting read.

The Other Woman - A story that seems too good to be true with hardly any sign of conflict suddenly serves a whack out of nowhere towards the end.

Forgive me, For I have sinned - A convoluted kind of tale which might appeal to some.

Overall a book very much worth 120 Rs. of your hard earned money and 120 minutes of your time spent away from hard earning money. Do visit here to buy the book on Amazon.

Saved in Sri Lanka

I see books to be of two kinds – ones that make you think and others that give you instant experiences to lighten your mood. There are many that do both as well. But that is beside the point. The thing is we need some books just to lighten our moods. These are what are known as comfort reads. The comfort reads are characterized by predictable uni-dimensional story lines and genre tropes. But still as the name suggests, the ones who find it comforting enjoy the change the same type of story over and over in different settings through the eyes of different characters. Some genres tend to be such comfort reads – action thrillers and romance for instance. Neither genre has somehow held much appeal for me. I have my own comfort reads – mine are children’s stories and tales of exploration in fantasy lands. But then when my forays into social media brought me in touch with a host of romance writers, I knew the day was not far before I would be initiated into this genre. And yes it did when I participated in an online contest organized by one of my friends and ended up winning her book as prize. That is how I landed the book ‘Saved in Sri Lanka’ by Devika Fernando.

Having set some context, let us get to the story. Unlike me here, Devika does not waste any chapters setting the context and jumps straight to the story. We have Sepalika, a Lankan tour guide with a group of tourists on a tour around Lanka setting her eyes upon Daniel Byrne, an Irish tourist and love igniting in her heart on first sight. The whole story is told in third person from Sepalika’s point of view and takes us on a week long journey around Sri Lanka along with Daniel and Sepalika. As we discover the wonders of Sri Lanka along with interesting nuggets on the associated history from the fountain of knowledge on two legs as Daniel describes Sepalika, we also get to know some of her back story. We learn about her family, her dreams, her studies in England and her forced engagement to a local tycoon Mahesh. As the story progresses the romance between the two builds up more and more intensely that would have probably had the romance lovers drooling. For me though all that was more a distraction from the beauties of Sri Lanka. All the rich descriptions of the monuments along with their history, the wonders of nature, the local traditions, cuisines and the flora and fauna are the strong point of the book.

The language is clear and concise and takes you through the story effortlessly. There isn’t much of plot to speak of – there is a simple straightforward conflict and an equally straightforward resolution that won’t unnecessarily tax the reader’s brains. The characterization is limited to Daniel and Sepalika and the entire focus is maintained on them. Even there characters are not unduly complex with multiple shades of grey for the readers to decipher. They are simple people with simple desires. All these make it very good comfort fiction. Most of my favorite children’s fiction enjoy these characteristics too. That is why I feel if this story had been about four children solving a mystery as they go on a tour around Sri Lanka rather than a Sri Lankan tour guide and an Irish tourist falling in love, it would have been just my kind of book.

I will definitely pick up any book this author writes in any of my comfort genres if at all she writes one. As far as my understanding of romance genre goes, this is just their kind of book with all the nice candy floss emotions and detailed descriptions of physiques, clothing and accessories. So I would recommend it as a must read for all romance lovers for whatever a recommendation from a genre noob is worth. Others can still pick it up as a travel guide to Lanka.

You can pick up the book right here on Amazon.

No Safe Zone

When I try to think of an occasion when I was in a complete no safe zone, the one that comes to my mind immediately is on the day I bought my car. I had learnt driving not once but twice and had a valid license as well. But I had never driven alone. I was staying alone and so had no family members to accompany me either. I decided to take the plunge and take a drive to the subway for my lunch. Initially it was all fine - I just had to put my feet on the clutch, turn the key, bring on the first gear, slowly release the clutch, and wait for the car to move and then switch to second gear. Everything was going well as long as I was cruising along the by lanes with hardly any traffic. And then I hit the highway. Suddenly vehicles were coming at me from all directions. There was no one to give me any instructions – to turn right, turn left, speed up, slow down, change gears etc. I was all by myself amongst the crazy traffic. The large trucks and buses that would just crush me to pulp. I was totally terrified. But I managed to hold my nerves and slowly edge my way towards the subway restaurant. It was a huge sigh of relief when I finally managed to park the car outside the subway. But the very thought that I have to drive all the way back home completely took away my appetite. I hung on delaying the inevitable as long as I could, nibbling through the subway bit by bit. But finally the sandwich, the cookies and the coffee as well were done. It was time to get back to the no safe zone.

This post is published as part of the promotional campaign of the book No Safe Zone by Adite Banerjie, a very good friend of mine. She is an amazing author whose works have won acclaim internationally. You can buy her book here.