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Review by Ronica Wahi Aliens in My Garden By Jude Gwynaire First published: October 9, 2018, Prodigy Gold Books. Pages: 280. ISBN: 9781939665720 This book is one of those kinds that run like a film in the reader’s mind’s eye - the description so vivid that the reader as if watches the action taking place in the book. If a cinematic reproduction were to be taken up for this one and justice done to it, it sure would make for an enjoyable piece. Jude Gwynaire, a musician and a writer whose writing combines elements from nature and folklore, besides other things, creates a novel, beautiful, thriving wonderland, full of magic and adventure in his young adult fiction Aliens in My Garden. “The Garden”, as the said wonderland in referred to within the narrative, is located within a garden like any other we know. But the Garden – as mentioned - is like no other we know. The Garden has sentient beings of all sorts; among them are Old Tom who is a “potato farmer” – both a potato...

Review by Ronica Wahi Unmarriageable: Pride and Prejudice in Pakistan By Soniah Kamal First published: January 15, 2019, Allison & Busby. Pages: 384. ISBN: 9780749025151 “…Characters’ emotions and situations are universally applicable across cultures, whether you’re wearing an empire dress, shalwar kurta , or kimono.” (p. 262) So says Alys – Alysba Binat, the female protagonist of Soniah Kamal’s Unmarriageable: Pride and Prejudice in Pakistan. Since this is a retelling/adaptation of Jane Austen’s beloved novel, Alys is clearly the counterpart to Elizabeth Bennet. Even though the main plot and the characters are well-known, Unmarriageable has much newness to offer. The novel shows what Alys says in the comment quoted above – the emotions and situations presented by Austen are picked up for they are as valid in Pakistan of 2000-01. But with the similarities, there are differences too. In this postcolonial tale, the culture and the vibe of the subcontinent comes throug...

Review by Ronica Wahi Kisson ki Rail By Abhidha Sharma First published: July 15, 2021, Ekatra – a joint imprint of Manjul and Pratilipi. (Stories within narrative published one by one earlier, Pratilipi app) Pages: 128. ISBN: 9789390924646 On a solitary journey or on a lazy weekend or at some such point of time, a book that is thought-provoking and nostalgia-inducing but light and fun too is a boon. Abhidha Sharma’s Kisson ki Rail (loose translation: "The Rail of Anecdotes") is one such book. Kisson ki Rail is the recounting of a train journey undertaken with friends. On the way, the writer and her friends, and the other passengers with them in the Non-AC sleeper narrate stories of various kinds and shades; while some stories make one think deeply, others evoke smiles or laughter.  If narratives of exploitation, injustice, grief, and regret find place here, so do narratives of courage, determination, love, and hope.  With the sheer variety in the kisse (ane...

  Review by Ronica Wahi Free from Pain – Exercise Book: Exercises to Improve Health, Increase Ability and Provide Vitality in Your Senior Years By Dr. George Ampat First published: July 17, 2021, Talita Koum. Pages: 96. ISBN: 9780995676947 Dr. George Ampat, a Consultant Orthopaedic Surgeon at present, has happily created this useful self-help health resource for people aged 50 and above who suffer from musculoskeletal pains. Despite years of experience of performing surgery, Dr. Ampat explains in Free from Pain – Exercise Book the importance of avoiding surgery, whenever possible. As a good self-help tool should be, the book is easy to grasp. Both the explanations bit and the instructions on performing the recommended exercises for alleviating pains in bones and joints primarily are clearly and crisply given, making these explanations and instructions quicker to assimilate. The illustrations explaining the necessity of exercise and enlivening the metaphors that go ...

  Review by Ronica Wahi   And Beneath It All Was Love: My Path Back Home Again Through Breast Cancer By Aime Alley Card First published: February 3, 2016, Aime a Card. Pages: 274. ISBN: 9780692592465 “I am concerned that I was one of those people who appeared on the outside to sail through it. I want to be clear. No one who goes through chemotherapy sails through it. It’s brutal.” Through the above lines, Aime Alley Card, in the “Prologue” to her memoir And Beneath It All Was Love , makes an honest confession of how her experience of cancer treatment was. The entire memoir tells of her journey of fighting cancer – she doesn’t shy away from displaying her vulnerability and mental turmoil, and from talking about her fears and pain felt at different stages of the said journey. The memoir starts from just before she is diagnosed with stage 2 breast cancer, a little over a year after her mother succumbed to brain cancer. The pain of and the fears arising from this...

  Review by Ronica Wahi Junction: Still Ticking (Junction Trilogy Book 2) By L.A. Evans First published: March 5, 2021, Lizzie Guttridge. Kindle Edition Pages: 405. ASIN: B08X4GPLPR The plot of this trilogy is unbelievable and outlandish, but there can be no doubt that this plot is also quite creative and unique, and that L.A. Evans is a gifted writer. Read detailed review on Junction: Time’s Ticking – Book 1 of this trilogy here . Book 2 tells the tale from the point of view of Zoe Young, and of course, takes the narrative forward too. To the credit of Evans, when the same incidents are related, it doesn’t seem like the reader knows just about everything already; there is much to learn about the whole affair. Certain instances are understood better as additional dimensions are revealed, as light is shed on some of the things that weren’t clear in their entirety or weren’t appreciated in the correct spirit in Book 1. The thriller runs at a good pace, with many twi...

  Review by Ronica Wahi   Primed for Vengeance By Gill D. Anderson Published: August 3, 2021, InHouse Publishing. Pages: 226. ISBN: 9781922578563 Life is uncertain. Life is unfair. Life is tragic. It is just much more so for certain people than for the rest. Among the ones who see life’s most brutal face are those who have a traumatized childhood. Among these are some who become damaged for as long as they live, damaged to the extent that they become a threat to others. One of the characters in Gill D. Anderson’s latest novel Primed for Vengeance thinks to herself, “… We can make choices in life; certain people just choose to stay in victim mode forever. ” (p. 112) Yes, this is the tale of a man – who renamed himself Butch to represent “the tough guy he needed to become, moving forward”- who’s been scarred too much and resorts to violent murders “to gain the recognition he deserved.” For Butch, trauma and what he considered repeated rejection become too mu...