The Whimsy Bookworm: A Book Blog from India

  Book: Honor   Author: Thrity Umrigar  Pages: 336  Read On: Kindle  How Long it Took Me To Read: 2 days  Plot Summary:   When Indian American journalist Smita returns to India to write the story of a young widow Meena and the murder of her husband, it’s Smita’s first time back since her family left when she was a child. Both Smita and Meena were raised in a culture where a woman exercising a basic human right―the right to love and marry whoever she chooses―is met with brutal punishment. While Meena’s fate hangs in the balance, Smita must reckon with the privilege that becoming an American has given her, as well as face the trauma that shaped her as a child and led to her family leaving. Dual love stories propel the narrative, as different as the cultures from which they emanate. We follow how Meena fell headfast in love with a person forbidden to her due to his religion and faced the violent consequences of her choice; and Smita's freed...

  Book: The Family Plot Author: Megan Collins  Pages: 382 Read on: Kindle  Read in: ~3 hours  Plot Summary:  At twenty-six, Dahlia Lighthouse is haunted by her upbringing. Raised in a secluded island mansion deep in the woods and kept isolated by her true crime-obsessed parents, she is unable to move beyond the disappearance of her twin brother, Andy, when they were sixteen. After several years away and following her father’s death, Dahlia returns to the house, where the family makes a gruesome discovery: buried in their father’s plot is another body—Andy’s, his skull split open with an ax. Dahlia is quick to blame Andy’s murder on the serial killer who terrorized the island for decades, while the rest of her family reacts to the revelation in unsettling ways. Her brother, Charlie, pours his energy into creating a family memorial museum, highlighting their research into the lives of famous murder victims; her sister, Tate, forges ahead with her popular dioramas ...

  Book: We Were Never Here  Author: Andrea Bartz  Pages: 306  Read on: Kindle  Read in: ~3 hours Plot Summary:  On holiday in Chile with her best friend Kristen, Emily is having the time of her life. Until one night, she finds their hotel suite covered in blood. Kristen claims a backpacker attacked her. She shouted, but no-one heard. She struggled, but he was too strong. She had no option but to kill him. With no evidence of the assault, Emily must help her hide the body. . . Back home, Emily tries to forget what happened, but a surprise visit from Kristen forces her to confront the events of that night. As the walls close in, Emily asks herself: can her closest friend be trusted? Things I Liked:  1. Complicated friendships- male or female- always make for interesting stories. Add to it, a friend, who is a bit of a liar.. a  gaslighter.. not who she seems to be... and that makes for a very interesting premise.  2. The depiction of the po...

Book: Every Vow You Break  Author: Peter Swanson  Pages: 320  Read on: Kindle  Read in: ~4 hours  Plot Summary:   Abigail Baskin never thought she’d fall in love with a millionaire. Then she met Bruce Lamb. He’s a good guy, stable, level-headed, kind—a refreshing twist from her previous relationships. But right before the wedding, Abigail has a drunken one-night stand on her bachelorette weekend. She puts the incident—and the sexy guy who wouldn’t give her his real name—out of her mind, and now believes she wants to be with Bruce for the rest of her life. Then the mysterious stranger suddenly appears—and Abigail’s future life and happiness are turned upside down. He insists that their passionate night was the beginning of something much, much more. Something special. Something real—and he’s tracked her down to prove it. Does she tell Bruce and ruin their idyllic honeymoon—and possibly their marriage? Or should she handle this psychopathic stalker on her ...

Book: The Wife Stalker Author: Liv Constantine Pages: 400 Read on: Kindle Read in: ~4 hours Plot Summary:  Joanna and Leo seem to have the perfect relationship. Two adorable children, a beautiful house in a chic area of Connecticut – they have the kind of life people envy. Then Piper moves to town. Piper is young, attractive, flirtatious. It’s almost no wonder Leo is tempted away.  Devastated, Joanna starts digging into Piper’s past, and discovers some very disturbing secrets – not least that Piper’s previous two husbands ended up dead. But Piper dismisses Joanna’s fears for her family as paranoia. Who is telling the truth? Joanna? Piper? The only certainty in this web of lies is that no one is who they appear to be…and no one will escape unscathed. Things I Liked:  1. The premise of the book seemed interesting. A new woman comes to town, hints of her shady past, her making a play for a married man and his wife doing her best to expose this charla...

Book: The Sentence is Death Author: Anthony Horowitz Pages: 384 Read: Kindle Edition Read in: 4 hours Plot Summary:  ‘You shouldn’t be here. It’s too late…   ’ These, heard over the phone, were the last recorded words of successful celebrity-divorce lawyer  Richard Pryce , found bludgeoned to death in his bachelor pad with a bottle of wine – a 1982 Chateau Lafite worth £3,000, to be precise. Odd, considering he didn’t drink. Why this bottle? And why those words? And why was a three-digit number painted on the wall by the killer? And, most importantly, which of the man’s many, many enemies did the deed? Baffled, the police are forced to bring in  Private Investigator Daniel Hawthorne  and his sidekick, the author  Anthony , who’s really getting rather good at this murder investigation business. But as Hawthorne takes on the case with characteristic relish, it becomes clear that he, too, has secrets to hide. As our reluctant narrator bec...

Book: The Stranger Upstairs Author: Melanie Raabe Pages: 346 Read On: Kindle Read In: 4 hours Plot Summary:   Several years ago, your husband, and the father of your young son, disappeared. Since then, you’ve dreamed of his return; railed against him for leaving you alone; grieved for your marriage; and, finally, vowed to move on. One morning, the phone rings. When you answer, a voice at the other end tells you your husband’s on a plane bound for home, and that you’ll see him tomorrow. You’ve imagined this reunion countless times. Of course you have. But nothing has prepared you for the reality. For you realize you don’t know this man.  Because he isn’t your husband, he’s a complete stranger – and he’s coming home with you. Even worse, he seems to know about something very bad you once did, something no one else could possibly know about . . . Could they? Things I Liked:  1. The premise of the book seemed really interesting. A man gone ...

Book: Swear You Won't Tell?  Author: Vedashree Khambete-Sharma  Pages: 244 Read: Paperback edition  Read in: 3-4 hours  Plot Summary:  Dead body, check. Disillusioned reporter, check. Dark and sinister secrets, check.  When Mumbai Daily journalist Avantika Pandit is asked to interview her childhood nemesis Aisha Juneja, she knows it will be like an express bikini wax - painful, but quick.  Then Laxmi, her former best friend, shows up dead. And suddenly Avantika finds herself turning into the reporter she used to be - a nosy little newshound with the self-preservation instincts of a dodo.  Now, she has to meet old acquaintances she'd hoped never to run into again, try to unravel the puzzle of Laxmi's death, and ask the questions nobody seems to be asking - who is the man Laxmi was in love with? Why hasn't anybody heard of him? What does he have to do with her death?  The answers could get her kill...

Book: The Breakdown Author: B.A. Paris Pages: 336 Read: The paperback pictured above Read in: 3 hours Publisher: St. Martin's Press Plot Summary:  Cass is having a hard time since the night she saw the car in the woods, on the winding rural road, in the middle of a downpour, with the woman sitting inside―the woman who was killed. She’s been trying to put the crime out of her mind; what could she have done, really? It’s a dangerous road to be on in the middle of a storm. Her husband would be furious if he knew she’d broken her promise not to take that shortcut home. And she probably would only have been hurt herself if she’d stopped. But since then, she’s been forgetting every little thing: where she left the car, if she took her pills, the alarm code, why she ordered a pram when she doesn’t have a baby. The only thing she can’t forget is that woman, the woman she might have saved, and the terrible nagging guilt. Or the silent calls she’s receiving, or the feeling ...

Book : Patang Author: Bhaskar Chattopadhyay Publisher: Hachette Pages: 226 Read On: Kindle How Long it Took Me To Read: 3 hours Plot Summary:   ‘I HATE THE RAIN…I HATE IT, HATE IT, HATE IT. BUT THE RAIN CAN’T STOP ME. NO ONE CAN…I’LL GO OUT AND PLAY TONIGHT…I WILL KILL ONLY FOUR. NO MORE, NO LESS. JUST FOUR.’ In the midst of one of the worst monsoons in Mumbai, a man is found brutally murdered, his body posed like a kite on the tallest cell tower in the city. As one corpse after another turns up in the unlikeliest of places, each gruesomely killed and carefully arranged in a grotesque manner, the Mumbai Police realize they have more on their hands than they can deal with. Enter Chandrakant Rathod, a maverick investigator the police turn to in times of need, who plays by his own rules and lives for the thrill of the chase. Pitting his sharp instincts against the machinations of the sadistic, ruthless killer, the detective succeeds in nabbing the psychopath...

Book: The Optician's Wife Author: Betsey Reavley  Pages: 225  Read on: Kindle via my Kindle Unlimited subscription  Read in: 2 hours  Plot Summary:  Can you ever really know someone? When Deborah, an unpopular seventeen-year-old, meets the charming and handsome Larry, he sweeps her off her feet. The trouble is Larry has a secret. Then a series of grisly murders cast a shadow over everything. As Deborah’s world starts to fall apart she begins to suspect the man she loves of a terrible betrayal. And to keep their marriage alive, sacrifices must be made. Things I Liked:  1. The premise was interesting. It hinted that secrets people kept, even within a relationship as intimate as marriage is. It also  hinted at one of the two people- Deb or Larry- being a serial killer or being involved in some way with serial killings. So, I thought this book would be quite interesting.. perhaps some kind of a spin on how t...

Book: The Bones of Grace Author: Tahmima Anam Pages: 404 Read On: Hardback How Long it Took Me To Read: 3 days Plot Summary:   'Anwar told me that it wasn't until he almost died that he realised he needed to find the woman he had once loved. I've thought about that a lot in the last few years, that if Anwar hadn't worked on that building site, he might never have gone looking for Megna, and if he hadn't done that, I might still be in the dark about my past. I've only ever been a hair away from being utterly alone in the world, Elijah, and it was Anwar who shone a light where once there was only darkness.' The Bones of Grace. It is the story of Zubaida, and her search for herself. It is a story she tells for Elijah, the love of her life. It tells the story of Anwar, the link in Zubaida's broken chain. Woven within these tales are the stories of a whale and a ship; a piano and a lost boy. This is the story of love itself.   General T...