Mini Book Reviews: Shadow in the Mirror by Deepti Menon & Nothing Else Matters by Vish Dhamija {Kindle Unlimited}

Book: Shadow in the Mirror

Author: Deepti Menon

Pages: 182

Read on: Kindle via our Kindle Unlimited Subscription 

Read in: 2 hours 

Plot Summary: It all begins with a death. Nita, a pregnant woman falling from her balcony becomes the string that unravels the plot. Her death casts a shadow over many lives; her heartbroken father, her husband and Vinny, a young journalist, drawn in by the whiff of foul play and murder.

What follows are stories within stories, eras and worlds colliding with each other, leaving behind splintered relationships and mesmerising slices of lives that appear to be drawn together and driven apart by the whimsical threads of destiny.

As events cast their shadows ahead to link the stories of Vinny, Kavita, Roma, Krish and Nita in an unrelenting knot, a journey starts to uncover the truth. What is the secret that links Nita’s death to the other characters? Will Vinny be able to unravel the mystery of Nita’s death?

Review: This is a pretty interesting book! It handles themes like love, manipulation, playing the victim card, sociopathy and such allied interesting things. At some level, it is kind of obvious, as we start looking into Nita's life, that who could've had the motive for killing her but the way the story unfolds and the way we find out about what drives our killer to kill is actually quite interesting. This is a tiny book (182 pages only) and is a nice and quick read. 

Rating: 4/5 

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Book: Nothing Else Matters 

Author: Vish Dhamija

Pages: 248 

Read on: Kindle via our Kindle Unlimited Subscription 

Read in: ~3 hours 

Plot Summary: Luv Singh is a hired gun; he carries out assassinations for an underworld don. The clients are anonymous, so are the targets.

Out one night on a job, he awaits his target to climb out of the car that’s just arrived at the scene. As he looks through the scope of his rifle, his finger on the trigger, he sees his target accompanied by one of the most gorgeous women Luv has ever seen: Zoya.

Zoya Merchant was Luv Singh’s girlfriend back in college, almost two decades earlier.

He fails to take a shot. He’s betrayed Zoya once before; He cannot assassinate her husband. Knowing that the mafia doesn’t condone failure or dissidence, he still pledges to save Zoya’s husband from whoever’s calling the shots.

Nothing Else Matters is a riveting tale set alternately in the criminal underworld and Zoya and Luv’s college lives and about making choices that impact lives forever. It is crime fiction, but it is also a heart-breaking romance of a love that never dies. 

Review: Nothing Else Matters (apart from being one of my favourite Metallica songs) had the potential to be a much more riveting book. However, somewhere, I think, the author got lost between trying to tell a love story and balance that with a gritty underworld, hafta giving, crime story. The book starts out well, Luv Singh, an ex-Xavierite, is now a hired gun. He has been asked to murder a prominent city businessman. When he is about to take the shot, he sees his college sweetheart- Zoya- with the man and decides against killing him. The book that goes back in time to Luv's college days and his romance with Zoya, how he ended up in the underworld (not the most plausible of tales..) etc. All of that was fine. I do wish, there was more of Luv investigating who wanted Zoya's husband dead and why.. The book is a decent read.. but, like I said, the author couldn't really balance the crime and the love aspects of the book together, making it a very 'meh' sort of read. 

Rating: 2.5/5