Review: The Last Song by Nicholas Sparks

Title: The Last Song

Author: Nicholas Sparks

Publishers: Grand Central Publishing

Date of Publication: September 8th, 2009

Genre: Romance, Contemporary

Format: Hardcover

Length: 390 pages

My Source: Ebook (epub)

Seventeen year-old Veronica “Ronnie” Miller’s life was turned upside-down when her parents divorced and her father moved from New York City to Wilmington, North Carolina. Three years later, she remains angry and alienated from her parents, especially her father… until her mother decides it would be in everyone’s best interest if she spent the summer in Wilmington with him. Ronnie’s father, a former concert pianist and teacher, is living a quiet life in the beach town, immersed in creating a work of art that will become the centerpiece of a local church. The tale that unfolds is an unforgettable story about love in its myriad forms – first love, the love between parents and children – that demonstrates, as only a Nicholas Sparks novel can, the many ways that deeply felt relationships can break our hearts… and heal them.

I began reading the book with an uncertainty whether I'll end up liking the book or not as I didn't like The Notebook as much as everyone else and I think its overrated. Frankly, I was pretty much convinced that I will not like the book because the synopsis gave me an impression that it was the same girl-meets-boy and fall-in-love kind of story and well, it is a book of that kind but still I liked the book, a lot.

Ronnie Miller is a very rebellious teenager, she does every possible thing to disobey her mother. After her parents' separation when her dad leaves New York, she just lets everything go: her grades, her piano playing skills (because it was her father who taught her playing piano and the man himself was a pianist) and many other things. Her mom ships Ronnie and her little brother, Jonah, to North Carolina for the summer to spend time with their dad. When they first arrive, Ronnie wants nothing to do with him, in her heart she hates Steve, her father and practically spends all the time out of home to avoid him. Then she meets Will, whom at first she doesn’t want to associate with, either. Then Ronnie starts seeing more of Will and he really helps her open up. And the inevitable happens, they fall in love. Let me not give you any wrong idea about it, it was that typical love story, but the story is not entirely about it. There are a few more edges of the story that makes it different and beautiful!

Ronnie was a pretty well-developed character. At first she’s this mean girl who is very inconsiderate of everyone. By the end she turns into a mature young lady who wants to please everyone. Once she discovers that it was her mother who was really responsible for the divorce, years of misunderstanding towards her dad washes away slowly. The way she treats her dad when he gets admitted to the hospital and refuses to return New York leaving her dad alone, shows a complete transformation of a teenage girl to a determined young woman.
I liked Will. He was this really easygoing guy who didn’t act anything like his snobby rich parents. The little incidents, the little things Ronnie and Will did together were beautiful. There wasn't anything extraordinary about it, but perhaps its the simplicity of the relationship that made it truly wonderful.
As for Steve's character, I haven't met someone as generous and understanding in my life, yet. He was less a parent, more a friend to Ronnie. Because he trusted her when he apparently had no reason to, Ronnie began trusting herself. Apart from Will, the person who played the biggest role to change Ronnie into somewhat a better person, was her dad. Jonah was really adorable for a ten year old.

Like I mentioned before, the plot wasn’t very creative. If you have read anything by Nicholas Sparks before, you would probably have noticed, too. But the book won't fail to touch your heart, I can assure you that. The writing is captivating too. So if you are a romance reader, go for it.

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As a child, Nicholas Sparks lived in Minnesota, Los Angeles, and Grand Island, Nebraska, finally settling in Fair Oaks, California at the age of eight. His father was a professor, his mother a homemaker, then optometrist's assistant. He lived in Fair Oaks through high school, graduated valedictorian in 1984, and received a full track scholarship to the University of Notre Dame.

After breaking the Notre Dame school record as part of a relay team in 1985 as a freshman (a record which still stands), he was injured and spent the summer recovering. During that summer, he wrote his first novel, though it was never published. He majored in Business Finance and graduated with high honors in 1988.

He and his wife Catherine, who met on spring break in 1988, were married in July, 1989. While living in Sacramento, he wrote his second novel that same year, though again, it wasn't published. He worked a variety of jobs over the next three years, including real estate appraisal, waiting tables, selling dental products by phone, and started his own small manufacturing business which struggled from the beginning. In 1990, he collaborated on a book with Billy Mills, the Olympic Gold Medalist and it was published by Feather Publishing before later being picked up by Random House. (It was recently re-issued by Hay House Books.) Though it received scant publicity, sales topped 50,000 copies in the first year of release.

He began selling pharmaceuticals and moved from Sacramento, California to North Carolina in 1992. In 1994, at the age of 28, he wrote The Notebook over a period of six months. In October, 1995, rights to The Notebook were sold to Warner Books. It was published in October, 1996, and he followed that with Message in a Bottle (1998), A Walk to Remember (1999), The Rescue (2000), A Bend in the Road (2001), and Nights in Rodanthe (2002), The Guardian (2003), The Wedding (2003), Three Weeks with my Brother (2004), True Believer (2005) and At First Sight (2005) all with Warner Books. All were domestic and international best sellers and were translated into more than 35 languages. The movie version of Message in a Bottle was released in 1999, A Walk to Remember was released in 2002, and The Notebook was released in 2004. The average domestic box office gross per film was $56 million -- with another $100 million in DVD sales -- making the novels by Nicholas Sparks one of the most successful franchises in Hollywood.

The film rights to Nights in Rodanthe, True Believer and At First Sight have been sold, and Nicholas Sparks has written the screenplay for The Guardian, though he has not offered it for sale at this point.

He now has five children: Miles, Ryan, Landon, Lexie, and Savannah. He lives in North Carolina with his wife and children.

His ancestry is German, Czech, English, and Irish, he's 5'10" and weighs 180 lbs. He is an avid athlete who runs daily, lifts weights regularly, and competes in Tae Kwon Do. He attends church regularly and reads approximately 125 books a year. He contributes to a variety of local and national charities, and is a major contributor to the Creative Writing Program (MFA) at the University of Notre Dame, where he provides scholarships, internships, and a fellowship annually.

Review: The Prophecy of Trivine by Tnahsin Garg, Pulkit Gupta and Srivatsan Sridharan

Title: The Prophecy of Trivine

Author: Tnahsin Garg, Srivatsan Sridharan, Pulkit Gupta

Publishers: Good Times Books Pvt. Ltd.

Date of Publication: December 15th, 2013

Genre: Science Fiction, Fantasy

Format: Paperback

Length: 264 pages

My Source: Paperback (ARC)

An emissary of an advanced alien race travels to the Earth to undertake responsibility of an experiment that has gone out of control. The outcome of this fateful experiment, which was conceived millions of years ago by her species, now rests in her hands. As she prepares to deliver her final judgment, she comes across three young men in a sacred forest who change her life forever. These three men- a scientist, a hacker and an artist, happen to take refuge in that forest, trying to escape from the oddities of their own unfair lives. Struggling with their dreams and demons, they begin to explore the dark and paranormal behavior of the forest by forging a companionship. From the rare flora and fauna breathing alive on the ground to the deadly wide expanse of the whimsy black sky, everything they find is yet another puzzle unsolved. Little did they know that four of them hold in their hands the future of mankind and much beyond imagination, they are connected through an ancient Prophecy that was long lost in the sands of time.

I had long since stopped reading English books by Indian authors after trying my luck with the over-hyped books by Chetan Bhagat and a few other books of similar category for I found those stories melodramatic, repetitive and utterly unrealistic. So when Tnahsin approached me requesting to read and review The Prophecy of Trivine, I was initially unsure about accepting it, but then going through the book blurb, I had the instinct that it'd be a book worth reading and my instinct did not disappoint me. 
Without further discussing the synopsis of the story, I'd get straight to the things I liked about it.
~The plot and the background of the story: Both are well-thought, well-built and definitely well-executed. This was probably the first science fiction I've read that has its setting in a dark, dense forest, i.e., in the lap of nature, which was very appealing in the first place.
~The concept of Gucutep: It was very interesting, the whole of it. I especially liked the meeting of the Gucutep council, the generosity of Alpha, the skepticism of Xona and the whole new idea of aliens as form of energy! (well, it was totally new to me..maybe that's why I was so excited!)
~The characters: Not only Siv, Phil, Arty and Xona, I liked all the characters, each character was well-developed and true to their nature. So generally speaking I immensely like the characterization.
~The bond between Siv, Phil and Arty. Starting from absolute strangers, how they became the truest of friends was really heart-warming.
~The flow of the story. The style of writing is lucid and witty. It remains a curiosity though how the three authors wrote it together! I mean who contributed which part? Or was it just they thought things through mutual discussions and then wrote it down and edited each others writings? I'd really like to know this!
~The story itself as it teaches you a few things of immense importance. It shows the true face of humanity but side by side displays the worth of human race, it shows the quality of perseverance, it teaches us what friendship actually means. It shows you a lot in the small span of 260 pages!

I'd have given it a 4 stars if I liked the ending better. This was not how I expected it to end..but anyway, will there be a sequel? I wish there is one!

Lastly, but definitely not the least, I want to thank Tnahsin for providing me with the chance of going through such a wonderful reading experience. It was my first ever physical copy of an ARC, so thank you for making this a special read! :)) You people have done a remarkable job indeed! 
That being said, I really want the Indian authors to vent into this kind of stories more than writing the same kind of campus romances, which are really gross!!

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The Prophecy of Trivine was written jointly by three friends, who were once together in college, and are now pursuing their lives & careers in distant corners of the world. But they still share the common passion of writing.

​They have come a long way, from the summer of 2010 when it all began, to the beginning of 2014 when the book will be in hands of friends. 

Tnahsin Garg: Tnahsin was born and brought up in India where he got a Bachelor's degree in engineering. After that he travelled to United States in search of higher education and adventure, and ended up getting a Master's degree in 2012.  When tired of his scientific pursuits, he's often found scribbling something unintelligible on some decayed corner of the Internet. He does have a neglected blog for those who like clicking around in curiosity. 

He is currently pursuing a PhD in applied sciences in Northern Europe. 

Tnahsin

Pulkit Gupta: Pulkit is a Computer Science professional who completed his Bachelors in Engineering from Thapar University, India in 2011. He has been an avid reader and an enthusiastic writer since his childhood days. He maintains a number of blogs which are in various stages of decay, but his most recent short story work can be found on his recently createdblog:

He currently works as a Technology Analyst at Goldman Sachs, Bangalore.

Pulkit

Srivatsan Sridharan: Srivatsan is a Computer Scientist, who recently graduated with a Masters degree from Purdue University in the United States. He completed his Bachelors in Engineering from Thapar University, India in 2010. Along with computers, he is extremely passionate about writing. Most of his artistic ideas have taken shape in the form of short stories, speeches, travelogues, and essays. Some of them can be found in hisblog:

He currently works as a Software Engineer at Yelp, Inc. in San Francisco, California.



Srivatsan

Review: A Newlywed's Adventures in Married Land by Shweta Ganesh Kumar

Title: A Newlywed's Adventures in Married Land

Author: Shweta Ganesh Kumar

Publishers: Indireads

Date of Publication: June 12th, 2013

Genre: Contemporary Fiction

Format: Ebook (pdf)

Length: 102 pages

My Source: Ebook (pdf)

“Dependent!!?” Mythili and Siddharth realize that being newlywed in a foreign country is very different from being passionately in love, long-distance. She has just moved to the Philippines to be with the love of her life and new husband, Siddharth. After being a hard-as-nails reporter who covered crime stories of the goriest kind, Mythili is now just a ‘dependent’. On top of that, unemployment, encounters with expat-wives and culture shock leave her feeling like she has fallen down a rabbit hole. Will their love survive, or will she become just another unhappily married expatriate wife? Will this real life Alice ever embrace her Wonderland?

This was an ARC that I thought would be fun reading. My prediction wasn’t quite correct but the book wasn’t a disappointment either. It was a fast-paced, light read and a mixture of lots of emotions involving little bit of fun as well. One of the prime reasons for my choosing this book was the similarities that the author have drawn with “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland”- I was curious about how she had connected the two completely different phenomenon, and while reading the book, I found the metaphor was woven wittily and meaningfully.

After marrying Siddharth, Mythili finds herself landing in Manila, detached from his own world, friends and relatives. Back in India she was a passionate crime reporter but after reaching the foreign country with Siddharth she is tagged as a merely ‘dependent’ person. The ‘Desi Gang’, comprised of NRIs living out there was no help at all. The story is about how Mythili adopts herself there against all odds.

From the very beginning I liked Mythili’s character. One can easily understand her state of mind after leaving her country and being in a whole new world, surrounded by bunch of new and different people who were nothing like her. She could hardly be herself with them. After working passionately all her life, being jobless and the dependent status totally sucked! But the series of events somehow made her discover herself better and her bond with Siddharth strengthen even more. Siddharth was very supportive of her and tried his best to make her feel comfortable. The relationship the two shared was beautiful and really sweet.

To cut things short, Shweta has done a pretty good job with the book. The narration is lucid and captivating. All in all, it was an interesting and enjoyable reading experience for me. 

Shweta Ganesh Kumar is a writer and travel columnist. An alumnus of the Symbiosis Institute of Mass Communication, she worked as Communications Officer for Greenpeace India and as a correspondent with CNN-IBN, before dedicating her life to writing. 

Her third book and first novella, 'A Newlywed's Adventures in Married Land,' is now available worldwide from Toronto-based publishers Indireads. 


Her second novel ‘Between the Headlines-The travails of a TV reporter’ was released in May 2012 and is now available in bookstores and online stores. 

Her first novel ‘Coming Up On The Show… The Travails of a news trainee’ sold more than 10,000 copies within the first two months of its release in May 2011 and was also listed on multiple bestseller lists.


A mother herself, she writes on the joys and trials of being a parent in a five day a week bulletin called 'The Times Of Amma - the motherhood bulletin with badly-drawn cartoons.' 


The New Indian Express, One Philippines and Geo (Indian edition) have published many of her travel columns. RobinAge, a leading children’s newspaper features her pet and travel columns for children. ‘Kiski Kahani – The Ramayana Project’, an Open Space initiative, features her essays on the diversity of the Ramayana. 

Her non-fiction pieces have been featured in Chicken Soup for the Indian Spiritual Soul, Chicken Soup for the Indian Soul – On Friendship and also in CBW’s India’s Top 42 Weekend Getaways eBook. Women's Web has featured her feminist columns and Mahindra's Mom and Me - her columns on being a new mother. 


Her short fiction has been published in Indian Voices- an anthology, Shades of Love (An Anthology of Short Stories), Winds of Change (An Anthology), Australian Women Online, Single Solitary Thought, Pothiz, Damazine and the Asia Writes Project.

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Review: Crashing Into You by B. D. Rowe

Title: Crashing Into You

Author: B. D. Rowe 

Publishers: B. D. Rowe

Date of Publication: Oct 3rd, 2013

Genre: NA, Contemporary Romance

Formats Available: Paperback, E-book 

Length: 310 pages

My Source: Ebook (epub)

Bookish college sophomore Sydney Baker wants Evan Taylor with every ounce of her being. The hottest stud on campus, Evan is six foot four, ripped, stacked with muscles. He's even easy to talk to. There's just one problem: he's her roommate Melanie's boyfriend. But when Melanie tragically dies after a night of wild partying, Sydney and Evan turn to each other in a time of intense grief. And it doesn't take long for their close friendship to blossom into something more. Unfortunately for Sydney, secrets from the past soon put her relationship with Evan to the test. Especially when a sexy blonde freshman makes her way into Evan's life, and tries to rip away everything Sydney holds close to her heart. 

 **Mature Situations and Sexual Content - Recommended for Ages 17+**

I received a copy of this book in exchange of an honest review, as part of a blog tour. I generally choose ARCs very carefully, but now I wonder what made me choose this book!

The cover seemed to be pretty interesting, I admit. I've read only a few NA contemporary romance novels before so I had thought I'd give it a try. I wish I hadn't.! It’s less about romance and more about physical intimacy.

Sydney, a college sophomore (who is designated as 'bookish' in the synopsis, but I don't understand why!) is hopelessly in love with a hot guy Evan Taylor who happens to be her roommate Melanie's boyfriend. Evan is friendly, and sometimes even flirty with Sydney, but he is 'loyal' to her girlfriend until Melanie dies mysteriously in her hostel room. And then the inevitable happens, Evan and Sydney fall in love with each other. After spending an awesome summer together, they rejoin college to find that Melanie's sister, Michelle, who looks eerily similar to Mel has joined as a freshman and she apparently is after Evan, the other way round too. One night Sydney discovers Evan in Michelle’s room and a drunk Michelle claims that Evan was the cause of Melanie’s death (Melanie died for over drinking and Evan was supposedly the one to put her in such a situation) and then after a number of super-dramatic events Evan and Sydney stays together.

The story is disgusting, if it could be considered as a story at all. There are descriptions of love-making, at least ten times, whenever Evan and Sydney got into bed together. Things are all same and extremely boring after a few chapters and it took me great efforts to finish the book. *Phew*

One astonishing thing about the story is that Sydney is strictly against people getting drunk and drive after that because in high school her boyfriend James had died in an accident whereas she survived miraculously (and both of them were drunk at that time). The accident expensed the lives of a 9 year old boy and his mother so Sydney’s reaction to drunkards is more or less justified. The thing that surprises me is that she never mourns over the death of James. If James was responsible for his own death, so was she, equally responsible for that accident. But all her grief was for the other victims, which is okay, but nothing at all for James!

The story-telling is lucid but the unfortunate thing is that there wasn’t much to tell. I liked the character of Lukas, Sydney’s nerd, intelligent, sensible (and homosexual) best friend. But frankly speaking I didn’t adore either of Sydney and Evan’s character. To cut things short if you’re eyeing some erotic elements in a book, pick this one. But if you’re looking for a good story, I’d recommend you not to choose this book.

B.D. Rowe is a Sacramento native with a penchant for crafting tales of romance, mystery, and intrigue. Crashing Into You is B.D. Rowe's New Adult debut.

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Review: The Reckless Engineer by Jac Wright

Title: The Reckless Engineer

Author: Jac Wright

Series: The Reckless Engineer #1

Publishers: Soul Mate Publishing, New York

Date of Publication: 19th Oct, 2013

Genre: Mystery, Thriller

Format: Paperback

Length: 400 pages

My Source: e-book from the author

Love is a battlefield. 

The aftershocks of an affair reverberate out to those in the lives of the lovers, who will NOT take it lying down.

Jack Connor's lives an idyllic life by the Portsmouth seaside married to Caitlin McAllen, a stunning billionaire heiress, and working at his two jobs as the Head of Radar Engineering of Marine Electronics and as the Director of Engineering of McAllen BlackGold, his powerful father-in-law Douglas McAllen's extreme engineering company in Oil & Gas. He loves his two sons from his first marriage and is amicably divorced from his beautiful first wife Marianne Connor. Their delicately balanced lives are shattered when sexy Michelle Williams, with whom Jack is having a secret affair and who is pregnant with his child, is found dead and Jack is arrested on suspicion for the murder.

Jeremy Stone brings London's top defence attorney, John Stavers, to handle his best friend's defence.

Who is the bald man with the tattoo of a skull seen entering the victim's house? Who is "KC" who Caitlin makes secret calls to from a untraceable mobile? Has powerful Douglas McAllen already killed his daughter's first partner and is he capable of killing again? Is Caitlin's brother Ronnie McAllen's power struggle with Jack for the control of McAllen Industries so intense that he is prepared to kill and frame his brother-in-law? Is the divorce from Jack's first wife as amicable on her part as they believe it to be? Are his sons prepared to kill for their vast inheritance? Who are the ghosts from Caitlin's past in Aberdeen, Scotland haunting the marriage? What is the involvement of Jack's manager at Marine Electronics?

​

The cast of characters is made even more colorful by the supporting entourage: the big Scott and his gang, Hosé and Heineken, who carry out Douglas McAllen’s “troubleshooting;” McAllens' bumbling solicitors McKinley and Magnus Laird; Caitlin McAllen’s handymen, Cossack and Levent; and Jeremy’s sidekick, the gay black actor working in the London West End.



While Jack is charged and his murder trial proceeds in the Crown Court under barrister John Stavers’ expert care, Jeremy runs a race against time to find the real killer and save his friend's life, if he is in fact innocent, in a tense saga of love, desire, power, and ambition.

I received a copy of The Reckless Engineer from the author Jac Wright in exchange of an honest review. I hadn't heard Jac's name before when he approached me, but as the blurb seemed to be interesting, I took this ARC request and I'm quite happy that I did.

This is the story of Jack Connor, a womanizer and the unfaithful husband of Caitlin McAllen, beautiful and elegant daughter of a wealthy businessman. The story begins when Jack is arrested and accused of killing a woman, Michelle, his colleague and also pregnant with his child. Jack calls his friend Jeremy for help and Jeremy's friend Harry Stavers, one of the London's top criminal lawyer, takes charge of Jack's case. 

As Harry works on Jack's defense, Jeremy investigates what happened and tries to untangle the mess Jack has put himself and his family in by having multiple affairs with women at work. The action follows Jeremy to the McAllen English estate and Scotland where Caitlin's family still lives and works.

The story-line of the book is very interesting and the mystery is solid. Jeremy who is an engineer by profession, attempts to find the murderer before Jack is convicted and sent to prison. Jeremy is also trying to keep his engineering firm solvent, reconcile with his ex-wife, be loyal to Jack's ex-wife and his current wife, and keep a good working relationship with the McAllens, who have hired him to run the company in Jack's absence.

This is a well-written mystery and I was having a hard time guessing who actually killed Michelle until it was revealed. I think some part of the book, like Jeremy's attempts to get back in the relationship with his ex-wife, Maggie could have been excluded as it has nothing to do with the main plot. Also, some of the Engineering stuffs seemed a bit unnecessary. However, since this is the first book of the series, perhaps the author plans to elaborate the relationships even more in the sequels. 

One positive thing about the book is its character building. All the characters are well and vividly described. The narration (its a third person narrative) is good too, the scenes are properly described. 

Overall, it was an enjoyable read. I'd recommend it to all who love reading mystery/thrillers. And lastly, I want to thank the author for approaching me to read and review this book. It was worth reading. 

Jac Wright is a published poet, a published author, and an electronics engineer educated at Stanford, University College London, and Cambridge who lives and works in England. Jac studied English literature from an early age of three, developing an intense love for poetry, drama, and writing in Speech & Drama classes taken every Saturday for fourteen years, and in subsequent creative writing classes taken during the university years. A published poet, Jac's first passion was for literary fiction and poetry writing as well as for the dramatic arts. You will find these influences in the poetic imagery and prose, as well as the in the dramatic scene setting and deep character creation.

These passions - for poetry, drama, literary fiction, and electronic engineering - have been combined to create the first book in the literary suspense series, The Reckless Engineer. There are millions of professionals in high tech corporate environments who work in thousands of cities in the US, the UK, and the world such as engineers, technicians, technical managers, investment bankers, and corporate lawyers. High drama, power struggles, and human interest stories play out in the arena every day. Yet there are hardly any books that tell their stories; there are not many books that they can identify with. Jac feels compelled to tell their stories in The Reckless Engineer series.

Jac also writes the literary short fiction series, Summerset Tales, in which Wright explores characters struggling against their passions and social circumstances in the semi-fictional region of contemporary England called Summerset, partly the region that Thomas Hardy called Wessex. Some of the tales have an added element of suspense similar to Roald Dahl's Tales of the Unexpected. The collection is published as individual tales in the tradition of Geoffrey Chaucer's Caterbury Tales, Charles Dickens' The Pickwick Papers and Thomas Hardy's Wessex Tales. The first tale, The Closet, accompanies the first title in the author's full-length series, The Reckless Engineer.

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