From Deepa's Desk

The Smiling Dog Cafe by Neil Plakcy This book features two novellas based on different characters. Code of Silence: Jeff's mother would often say that bad news always comes in threes. It turns prophetic when Jeff's girlfriend dumps him, he loses his job and the building where his house used to be, gets damaged and he needs to relocate instantly. Caught in the trauma of his past and the failures of the present, Jeff finds himself being led to a cafe named The Smiling Dog Cafe, by none other than a dog that seems to communicate to him that he needs to visit the cafe as soon as possible. Jeff visits the cafe one fateful day and faces everything that he didn't even know he had been avoiding. A Mother's Heart 'We inherit a lot from our mothers and not everything is good.' - Betty, the owner of The Smiling Dog Cafe. Having seen her mother suffer from a heart ailment which is genetic, Sophia has only managed to accept her own heart condition and learn to live with it. ...

This book is a collection of 21 letters that the Col wrote for his son. Letters because, the Col says (rightly) that it is not always easy for fathers to converse with their sons. Hence he decided to write down everything that he wanted to share with his son. The letters talk about the Col's early days and his struggles and the life lessons he learnt and wishes to impart to his son. As a millennial who has a teenaged son, I could very well relate to each and every letter. The Col's advice is not at all preachy. He has written the way it would appeal to teenagers - sharing life-lessons but giving the choice of direction and path to his son. The letters are simple yet deeply profound in their content. Many a times I came across a sentence that brought a lump to my throat. The Col has written from the PoV of a millennial - born in one generation, raised in another and now living in a totally new world. His fears regarding the world that his son is living in now are the fears that ...

Point Blank by Logan Ryles When a personal tragedy shatters his world, Army Veteran Mason Sharpe heads off to North Carolina to find a release from his suffering. Only, he comes across a body at the sea shore. The fact that he is new to the town and is the one to find the body, directly puts him into the police's list of suspects. But the police ultimately brush off the case as a suicidal drowning. But Mason observes some things that make him question the suicide angle to the case. The police's lax attitude doesn't exactly help matters. The handful of good people that Mason comes across in the town motivate him to solve the case. But things aren't what they seem to be! I have been wanting to expand my reading to different genres. I have been stuck up on the same one since quite a while. Hence I opted for a good old-fashioned Action narrative. The story moves at the perfect pace - neither too fast nor too slow but enough to keep our attention booked on to it. All the ch...

Uttarakhand, with its majestic and timeless mountains, beautiful valleys and Himalayan glacial rivers has a rich folklore of legends and stories that are still passed down from one generation to another.  In this book, Supriya has presented a re-telling of the stories in her unique way, adding lots of mysticism and poignancy to the same. Be it the princess unable to refuse the call of the forest, or the queen who gave birth to a mortar and pestle, be it the forest sprites that ask for honoring promises, or protective crows - every story takes the readers back to a time when Uttarakhand's bountiful nature must have inspired the earliest artists, poets and story-tellers.  The narrative is beautiful, bringing the images to life. The characters are unforgettable and leave a lasting impact. Supriya is a wonderful narrator, weaving beautiful trapestries of emotions and images in her stories and leaving the readers spellbound. Magic, romance, mystery, thrill - there is a story for ev...