Kevein Books and Reviews

Outbloom by MusafirAsmani is an engaging short book of around 10 poems. In the collection most of the poems are long yet meaningful. In a true sense, the book is divided into two parts: other poems vs. a poem on poet’s grandmother (Shrimati-Prabhavati). That poem on grandmother captures the lifestyle, rituals, and philosophy of an old woman in perfect harmony. The poet had inseparable bonding with his grandmother. In simple words, it’s a tribute to her. Talking about other poems, the poet explored the various struggle and circumstances of life. In most outstanding words, the poems suggest the poet’s delicate youth tenure where he went through a farrago of emotions, based on his observation. However, the poet is optimistic about life and talks about ‘blossoming emotions.’ The first poem ‘Within’ talks about self-worth. Written in engaging manner, the poem is a motivational stuff as it encourages one to embrace the power of self-belief and much more. The next poem, ‘Then’ throws one int…

Penning a short story with ingenuous settings is a Herculean task. The writer has to maintain a proportion in all aspects without any single aspect being given too much space. I have always preferred a short story collection to a novel because I can read the stories in any order. In addition, it has a variety of themes and characters. My new encounter is ‘Slices of Life’, written by Richa Gupta. Earlier, I had read her novel ‘Skeins’. Broadly speaking, she understands and depicts women in her work. Even in 'Slices of Life', she voices the pain and views of women that we tend to ignore. She delves into the heart of the women she represents in her collection. The collection includes 12 stories that are average to extensive in length. The first story deals with a common problem faced by urban women: finding an honest maid to do housework. The focus of 'The Young Visitor’ is well divided between Kanika and Kanta. The former belongs to an affluent family but lacks a maid to do r…

A Silent Takeover by Sarvananda Chandrashekaraiah is a riveting crime suspense thriller set against the sublime backdrop of South India. The novel has an engaging storyline with fewer characters. The story kicks off with a film superstar Raaj Kumar Muthodi. He is portrayed as famous as Amitabh Bachchan or Rajnikant. But all his life, he was a sort of bohemian and playboy. He has had many girlfriends in his life. He is still a bachelor. On his 50th birthday, he runs into scuffle with the media. As a result, he goes away to one of his farm estates in Chikkamagaluru to lead a peaceful life. On the other hand, the lead character of the novel Suhaasini, an intern journalist is looking for a story that can change her destiny. She works in some famous tabloid. She takes up the curious case of Raaj Kumar’s ex girlfriends. Around eight girlfriends committed suicide. As she delves deep into the case and meets Raaj Kumar, she discovers that all events of tragedy have some common trails. For insta…

Once I read a poem ‘The Seven Ages of Man’, it had summed up all the major rituals and rites of passages of one human life. On similar lines, I read ‘Moments of Life’ by Benisha Nadar–a contemporary poetry collection. It covers a gamut of themes related to life that possibly a human being undergoes in one birth cycle. Benisha is a very young writer but her wisdom about life and its allied stages that she painted in the book are at par and she must have observed people around her with keen profundity. This is one poetry collection I ever came across which chronicles the life events. The book kicks off with birth, as when a baby is born, it gives immense unspeakable happiness to parents. However, that happiness can only be gauged by parents, not the infant. As the book moves, there is good coverage about baby days and carefree childhood. Message is clear that one must love parents and should not abandon them in futility. Initial poems are great for parents to relive those days when kids …

Seems like the world has always been a gruesome place to live, be it humans or animals or aliens. One or other thing keeps fighting for superiority and regimes. From the novel, The City That Barks and Roars, I came to know that even animals messed up when it was their chance to rule the world and live peacefully. Yeah, I am speaking about a novel that is set in the world of animals. It is one of the best humorous anthropomorphic crime fictions I have ever read. First, I thought it’s going to be like a story where animals behave and nudge the overall plot, with least human intervention, as it was in Life of Pie. Well, I was totally taken aback when I got under the skin of the story. Here animals are ruling the world, they are like humans – they talk, manage offices, the entire commercial cycle, and so on. The novel is set in some other time, long after human stopped existing. So the animals are proud of themselves – they are doing great than the humans – but only a deep dig reveals othe…

We are delighted to welcome a very promising author Kochery C Shibu for a brief Q & A session at our website about his Amazon Bestseller novel, ‘Faith and the Beloved’.  This is a super hit novel, breaking all records, so far it has gathered over 800 ratings and reviews at Amazon and Goodreads platforms from the readers.In this Q & A session, he will be talking about his journey as an author, inclination towards crime and thriller fiction, and much more. Stay on...while we chat with him.
KBR: How was writing a crime thriller different from writing some other genre books such as romance, adventure, and so on?Crime thriller is about the interlinking of time, space and people with a particular event, in this case a crime. The perception of the event as seen by various people based on the amount of information that is available to each one of them. Piecing together the puzzle as the story unfolds and keeping the readers appetite vetted.KBR: How did the idea for this novel come to y…