ronica.wahi

  Review by Ronica Wahi   Tere Bina Jiya Jaaye Na By Parthasarthi Daas First published: August 27, 2015, BecomeShakespeare.com Pages: 122.  ISBN: 9789383952533 Tere Bina Jiya Jaaye Na (loosely translated, it means: “Can’t live without you”) by Parthasarthi Daas is a 2015 novel on the universally loved subject of love. As the title suggests, it revolves around two people who cannot survive without each other. This title is also the title of a popular Bollywood romantic song from the late 1970s. The haunting lyrics talk of the inability to breathe and the inability to cherish life without the beloved. The book similarly talks of the strong, undying love between its protagonists, Biplav and Aahuti; their love is of the sort that remains unaltered, whatever may be the challenges or the circumstances. The subtitle reads Love: A Force of Destiny.   It is destiny indeed that brings the two together – they meet in unromantic circumstances, such that falling i...

  Review by Ronica Wahi   Death Sentences By Michael Zimecki First published: May 11, 2014, Crime Wave Press. Kindle Edition Pages: 215.  ASIN: B00KALIXVW Death Sentences by Michael Zimecki was published in 2014; it is not late though to be writing a review on this one. For it is relevant still. It is the story of Peter Popovich, or “Pop” as he is mostly referred to, who is on Death Row. The narrative shifts between first and third person accounts as Pop directly addresses the reader and shows the manuscript he’s working on wherein he reveals the story of his life, respectively. Pop decided to tell his story for, as he says, the TV news didn’t cover most of what happened in the US – and as first person narrator, said of Pop, “I am writing this book in honor of his crimes.” This referring to self in the third person – something he had learnt as a recruit at Boot Camp – was a habit that “stuck with him”, as he reveals. This boot camp was also where he received...

  Review by Ronica Wahi The Ghost of Villa Winter By Isobel Blackthorn First published: December 20, 2020, Gumshoe – A Next Chapter Imprint. Kindle Edition Pages: 269.  ASIN: B08R3KDZ9R     Canary Islands Mysteries Book 4 this is. The island of Fuerteventura does not offer a pleasure journey, but a frightful mystery as revealed by the title and the cover. No cause for hesitation if the first three books in the series are yet unread, for this is also a standalone piece of work. The positives first. The description of the ride to Villa Winter, the site where the crux of the tale is revealed when a body is discovered by the protagonist Clarissa Wilkinson and the once-successful-and-now-struggling crime fiction writer Richard Parry, is so vivid that the reader is as if taken along on the journey. The landscape, the scenery, the Villa Winter and other spaces are so deftly sketched that the reader can visualize the spaces. Much later in the book, as a trek on a d...

  Review by Ronica Wahi Dreamy Days and Random Naps By Mawson / Mark O’ Dwyer First published: December 1, 2020, Publisher Obscura. Pages: 52.  ISBN: 978-1922311139 Dreamy Days and Random Naps is a book fit to be bought for kids whose parents or other elders narrate stories to them to stoke their imagination and curiosity or to encourage their dreams. Kids who have just started reading also might find in it new words and ideas to test and digest. Older readers, unless they adore cutesy pictures, are not too likely to find this book engaging. But for those for whom Dreamy Days and Random Naps is a fit, it can prove to be a treat. The top winning aspect of the book is the pictures. Mawson, who is the protagonist bear, and his teddy bear friends are cute, and so are the items arranged around these teddy bears. The bears and other items lend aesthetic value, and are, in each picture, positioned to add meaning and relevance to the idea or dialogue written alongside....