Life as I know It

When Alice moves in with her partner Leo into The Circle, a gated private housing society of exclusive houses near Finsbury Park in London, she feels hopeful about their new life together. Alice and Leo have been seeing each other for twenty months, although they've been meeting only over the weekends due to their different locations.  Alice's life in The Circle is beautifully described and I really enjoyed reading about her neighbours, whom she tries to get to know. She wants to make friends and quickly identifies Eve, Maria and Tamsin as the potential candidates. Not a long time after she moves into The Circle, Alice finds out about Nina, the therapist who lived in the house before and was murdered in the house. Appalled at the discovery, Alice calls up Ben, the real estate agent who sold them the house and asks about it. Ben delicately informs her that Leo was aware of the history of the house and bought it because it was available at a lower price.  The fact that Leo kept s

 The fifth in the Cormoran Strike series, this novel is about a 40-year-old cold case of a young woman's disappearance that Strike and his partner Robin are hired to investigate. The case seems impossible to solve from the beginning - many of the witnesses are dead, untraceable or have relocated to different continents, there is no forensic evidence, and to complicate matters further, the chief investigating officer was ill and therefore often relied on astrology to identify suspects and most of the witnesses have one or the other reason to lie and many have motives to hurt the disappeared doctor.  If I didn't love the central characters Strike and Robin as I do, I might have found it difficult to finish this 900-page behemoth. It was simply too long. That is not to say it wasn't interesting; it was and it kept me in its grip. I think J.K. Rowling has become such an accomplished author and she can hold such complicated plots in her mind while writing that she does her best

I recently finished reading The Shadow Runner by Vishal Bahukhandi. It is the story of two men - Govind and Veer- who join the Indian Military Academy, one motivated by revenge and the other by a paltry heartbreak, and their transition from ordinary to extraordinary. It is a story of camaraderie, brotherhood, determination, sacrifice, love and heartbreak.  A highly recommended novel for those interested in the Indian Army and the Indian Military Academy in particular.  For me, the highlight of the novel was the bold humour. I found myself chuckling and even laughing out loud over the course of the first half of the novel when Veer is an absolutely hopeless case.  The action scene at the beginning of the novel is well-written and does its job of hooking the reader.  The main characters are well-developed, the pacing is quick, and most importantly, the novel scores well on what I call the "gripping factor" that keeps the reader wanting to know what happens next. This novel doe