Skip to main content

Book Review: The Mystic Agency by Shyambala

The Mystic Agency is a prequel to The Mystic Lawfirm. Both novels deal with slightly dark and supernatural and immortal elements. Since I have read the Lawfirm first, I am able to understand the connection Draupadi and Radha shares and how Sudama fits in the picture. Well, one can also read both novels independently, they are so vividly narrated. Falls in the kind of thriller with supernatural or ghost genre, this time author Shyambala has weaved a riveting tale of one special young girl who could see and talk with ghosts. But the crux of the story lies in how she is useful for lord Yama and his subordinates that are running some agency down on the earth.


The novel is backdropped against the sublime charm of Poona, the time dates back to the British rule. Mr Venkateshwar urges Draupadi to work for him, because of her special ability. Outwardly it looks easy one-time task; however, little did she know that her life will change forever once she begins interacting with these people from heaven and hell. The foremost task is to find a soul reaper gone missing. Lord Yama is worried about that.

She is equipped with a slate type object to distinguish between humans and ghosts. She has to find a person without a shadow. He/she could unlock the puzzle of that lost soul reaper. The novel is not only about present timeline, it shuttles between one more past era and that is connected to Draupadi. The novel is marvelously rolled out with a proper long cast of characters and mysteries wafting around them. What is Draupadi’s connection with Sati now and then? Who is her college friend Kardama in real life? Teleporting to some other world of dead and souls – the novel has spiced up plotline that lends its narrative an engaging tone. A bit offbeat, but this novel is way good with its solid storyline that one can savour it slowly, with patience and attention to details. The subject matter here is unheard and it hardly gets covered in the mainstream ghost genre books.

Shyambala writes with clear precision, her ability to sketch a world full of events and intersecting between two portals is mesmerizing. No tough usage of words and no tumultuous language usage, this novel is a clear winner if it comes to impressing readers. A must-try novel!

Buy a copy of the novel from Amazon/Kindle

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Poem Summary: Where The Mind Is Without Fear by Rabindranath Tagore

Poem by Rabindranath Tagore: Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high Where knowledge is free Where the world has not been broken up into fragments By narrow domestic walls Where words come out from the depth of truth Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way Into the dreary desert sand of dead habit Where the mind is led forward by thee Into ever-widening thought and action Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake. Short Summary: This poem is written by Rabindranath Tagore during pre-independence days, when India was a colony of the British. The underlying theme of the poem is absolute freedom; the poet wants the citizens of his country to be living in a free state. According to the poem, we see that the poet is expressing his views there should be a country, like where people live without any sort of fear and with pure dignity…they should

Book Review: The Blue Umbrella by Ruskin Bond

Among all Ruskin Bond books, The Blue Umbrella has, so far, gathered immense applaud from readers and critics alike.  This is a short novel, but the kind of moral lessons it teaches to us are simply overwhelming. This is a story of Binya, a poor little girl living with her mother and an elder brother, Bijju, in a small hilly village of Garhwal. One day while herding her two cows back home, she stumbles upon some city people enjoying the picnic in the valley. She is enthralled to see them well-groomed and rich. She craves to be one like them and among many other things of their, a blue frilly umbrella catches her attention. She begins craving for it. On the other hand, the city people get attracted by her innocent beauty and the pendant in her neck. The pendant consists of leopard’s claw – which is considered a mascot widely in the hills. Binya trades her pendant off with the blue umbrella. The blue umbrella is so much beautiful that soon it becomes a topic of conversation fo

Poem Summary: Ozymandias by Percy Bysshe Shelley

Ozymandias is a short poem of fourteen lines written by Percy Bysshe Shelley. The concurrent theme of the poem is that nothing remains intact and same forever in this world. Even the brightest of metal, one day decays with passage of time. The throne name of Egyptian King Ramesses is Ozymandias. It was his dearest desire to preserve himself forever by building a huge statue that he thought would never tumble down. Stanza 1: I met a traveller from an antique land Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand, Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown, And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command, Tell that its sculptor well those passions read Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things, The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed; Summary: The poet narrates the poem through the eyes of a traveler who seems to have come back from a remote and far-away land, referring to Egypt. The traveler r