BOOKWORM
DESI LOVE IS IN THE AIR!
The Love Match by Priyanka Taslim, Simon & Schuster, $24.99. Zahra Khan’s mother is focused on finding a “good match” for her daughter, Jane Austen style. Harun Emon is wealthy, handsome and aloof. Nayim Akhtar is the dishwasher at the tea shop where Zahra works while saving up for writing courses. Complications arise, but of course. For ages 12 and up, this book is dedicated “To any brown girl who has ever felt unwelcome in the pages of her favourite book. You deserve love, magic and wonder. And to my parents, for always supporting me – even when I didn’t want to be a doctor, lawyer, or engineer.”
Enough said!
Jasmine and Jake Rock the Boat by Sonya Lalli, Penguin, $23. An impulsive decision to join an Alaskan-cruise getaway with her parents brings the chance for a romantic adventure in the enemies-to-lovers romance. Jasmine Randhawa, meet Jake Dhillon!
Sugar, Spice and Can’t Play Nice by Annika Sharma, Sourcebooks, USD 16.99. A girl on the verge of living a life she has always dreamt of, becoming a rising star in fashion, and... of marriage? Payal Mehra, meet Ayaan Malhotra!
Isha, Unscripted by Sajni Patel, Berkley, $23. Isha Patel is an aspiring screenwriter who doesn’t have a “real” career as her parents never fail to remind her. Enter Matthew McConaughey. Yes, really! There’s also the cute bartender. Is an unscripted ending on the cards?
The Mis-Arrangement of Sana Saeed by Noreen Mughees, Alcove Press, $25.99. Thirty-three-year-old Sana Saeed has put away her childhood dream of ishq – an all-consuming love.
Then Daniel Malik walks into her office as her new boss. He’s as hot as a Bollywood heartthrob, and they used to be childhood friends. So what’s the problem? An old family feud! Cue the drama!
To Have and to Heist by Sara Desai, Berkley Romance, $23. Simi Chopra is in serious need of a knight in shining armour to rescue her from the mess her personal and professional life is in.
The mysterious Jack refuses to reveal his last name, but shares his love for plants. “My favourite pairing is hellebore planted near brunerra and fern for a trifecta of shady textural goodness”. Is anyone surprised that she is ready to swoon?
But first, with his help, she must pull off a jewellery heist – only to clear her best friend’s name, you see – during a high society wedding.
A CURRY OF EMOTIONS
Almost Brown by Charlotte Gill, Viking, $36. Charlotte Gill’s mother learned “there’s a special variety of prejudice for an Indian cocky enough to marry an Englishwoman. And for a white woman who steps out of line.”
That “stealing” of women by “coloured” foreigners was railing against the theft of jobs and housing from those who saw themselves as rightful heirs.
And Gill would learn that the day her parents met was the point where the family cracked – because not accepting the union extended to both sides of the family. “It’s the point where my mother, father, and their three children broke off from the past and began our drift across the ocean.”
Which brought them to Canada, which, they discovered, wasn’t exactly a brown man’s Valhalla either, Gill writes, quoting the late author Bharati Mukherjee who received a barrage of racial slurs and harassment. And so the family moved to America. Where the kids learnt about “the transatlantic slave trade as if through an interstellar telescope, as if it were a precondition to the abolitionist movement and the Civil War”.
Setting her personal story as a child of mixed parentage against the larger questions of race and belonging, Gill shares precious details and moving and laugh-out-loud stories. Watching Indiana Jones and The Temple of Doom as a thirteen-year-old in which people are served eyeball soup and monkey brains in an Indian princely state, for one!
It wasn’t simply a question of skin, or belonging, or the Englishness of Mom or the Indianness of Dad, or some murky middle state in between. It had become a curry of emotions and allegiance and identity, everything cooked together, all at once.
LOVE THROUGH THE AGES
English Romantic Poets, edited by Jonathan Bate, Everyman’s Library, $24. Children used to be taught poetry in school. In the early years, not at university.
That generation will find many, many old favourites – ones it can recall only snatches of and others it knows “by heart” – and also discover some new-ish ones.
Works of Wordsworth (both William and Dorothy), Blake, Cole-ridge, Burns, Shelly, Keats, Byron, and many others. Life, in all its many splendored forms, in the words of the greats.
THEY’RE BACK!
The Exchange by John Grisham, Doubleday, $39.95. If you are a fan of John Grisham’s legal thrillers, you may have read The Firm and know a thing or two about Mitch McDeere.
What became of Mitch and his wife Abby after they exposed the criminal activities at the Memphis law firm Bendini, Lambert & Locke and fled the country? They make a return in The Exchange, a riveting sequel to The Firm.
Mitch and Abby are now in Manhattan, and Mitch is a partner at Scully & Pershing, the largest law firm in the world.
A mentor’s daughter is kidnapped, a $100 million ransom demand is made, and Mitch finds himself at the centre of a sinister plot that takes him to Istanbul and Tripoli and Canary islands.
Mitch is a master at staying ahead of his adversaries, but this time his options are very, very limited, and there’s nowhere to hide.
Once again, Grisham, the author of forty-eight consecutive bestsellers, delivers high-stakes international suspense, exposing crime and corruption in high places – and human frailty that’s inevitably at the heart of the matter.
BUT IS SHE?
Almost Surely Dead by Amina Akhtar, Mindy’s Book Studio, $USD 28. Amina Akhtar writes about watching The Exorcist as a four-year-old with her family in her acknowledgments for her latest book, Almost Surely Dead.
“The full pea-soup-vomit, crab-walking horror in full glory.” Her father promised to protect her from demons by performing an exorcism. Akhtar bring both the elements together – family and spirits – in a mind-bending novel. The result is a contemporary psychological thriller with a chilling supernatural old-world twist.
Dunia Ahmed, a single, thirty-six-year-old pharmacist of Pakistani descent survived three bizarre murder attempts. And then went missing. For over a year, no one has known if she is dead or alive, but interest in her surges when a podcast details the events leading up to her disappearance. The revelations about childhood superstitions and veiled memories leave the listeners transfixed. Guests on the podcast include Dunia’s best friends; her sister from whom she was estranged; her ex, David; the detective who worked on her case; and Zabir Mirza, a professor of South Asian studies who was romantically interested in her and who, most importantly, taught a course on folklore and, wait for this... ghouls and jinns.
Who was after the attempts on her life? Or was it something, as Dunia had come to believe? Who is real and who is part of her make-believe world? She has pretended to be “normal” for so long, it’s hard to tell.
Chapters in the voice of an adult Dunia and Dunia age five are interspersed with transcripts of the podcast which just happens to be cashing in on the Dunia craze with “Find Dunia!” merch.
It is a taut – and surprisingly funny – thriller. One which left me on the edge of my seat as I refused to give in to the temptation to just turn to the end to relieve the tension!
VICE AND ADVICE
On the Ravine by Vincent Lam, Alfred A Knopf, $34.95. Dr Chen is a physician in downtown Toronto, wrestling with his inner demons. What if he had done more, or less? Or something different? Would his patients still be alive? Claire is a violinist, who has become increasingly reckless with the opioids in her system.
Their paths intersect, drawing the physician ever deeper into the complexities of the doctor-patient relationship. How far will he go to save a life?
From the Giller Prize-wining author of Bloodletting and Miraculous Cures, a gut-wrenching view of the devastating experience of addiction.
IN A FANTASY LAND
What Do We Know About Bigfoot? by Steve Korte, Penguin Workshop. Desis who were raised on tales of Yeti will be fascinated to learn of its other avatars. Encounters with Bigfoot, Bunyip, and Canada’s very own Windigo!
RETURN OF THE PILGINS
Minecraft Legends Return of the Piglins by Matt Forbeck, Random House Worlds, $23.99. The mythic past of Minecraft legends returns to threaten the Overworld in this official novel. For all fans of the game and their adults who require footnotes from their offspring!
WHO KNEW!
Earth Knowledge Genius! DK, $28.99. Can you find the Red Sea, Black Sea and Yellow Sea on a map? Can you spot the difference between the flags of New Zealand and Australia? No? Then dig into this book with the little ones in your family – a great way to stoke their interest in the world around them!
TEEN REVIEW
By JAPMAN RANGI
City of Nightmares by Rebecca Schaeffer, Clarion Books, $23.09. City of Nightmares is a fantastic story by Rebecca Schaeffer that has themes of corruption, trust and courage.
Set in the future, with a terrible and supernatural ailment that affects everyone. I would recommend this book to young adults with tastes for dystopias and darker concepts.
One of the book’s strong suits is how the story is conveyed through the setting which is very detailed and thought out.
This makes it easy to get immersed and the world feel more real and alive.
The story itself fits very well around the world and the themes. This book also leaves a lot of things unresolved for the sequel, Cage of Dreams, to expand on.
My main issue with City of Nightmares is the characters. All the characters in this book feel very stale, predictable and two-dimensional. They all seem to revolve around one singular trait or the exact role that they are meant to portray in the book. This makes the book boring at times because the characters’ reactions to everything are always the same.
Despite this drawback, it is a great book with a wonderful world and I can undoubtedly say that I am excited for the sequel.
• Japman Rangi is a youth volunteer at Brampton Library.