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It Must've Been Love, but...
by Asha G Kumar
266 pages
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It Must've Been Love, but... A candid contemplation into the caprices of human mind and emotions.
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Ebook
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$3.99
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Paperback
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$17.95
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Category: Fiction:Romance
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(requires Adobe Reader)
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About the Book
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"Life has a perverse penchant to reward and to punish. At times, it is hard to decipher one from the other."
The charming Apeksha Ayengar, meets her partner, Maya, in the unlikeliest of places: in a school where they both teach! A mother of two, the affluent but lonely Maya is entranced by Apeksha's confidence and passion towards life. Their intense, forbidden love unfurls in the shadow of Apeksha's bereavement for her mother. Distraught at losing her soulmate, her mom, Apeksha, finds anchorage in Maya. Maya's intense love seeps into Apeksha's being. Maya too wants and needs Apeksha. She is keen to pursue selfhood, her true sexuality, and yearns to "live." But, Apeksha's love is blindsided by a dangerous, concealed streak in Maya, who battles conviction and convenience. Caught in a vortex of violent emotional upheaval, Apeksha discovers the depths of darkness of the human mind, love's potency and its ability to push its victims to pernicious heights.
Exploring the limits to women's freedom, this novel debunks several stereotypes about modern Indian women and their passion, while examining an entire spectrum of selfhood, sexuality, love, loss and betrayal.
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Reviews
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It Must've Been Love, but... by Asha Kumar
It must have been love...surely? This tale of semi-requited love sweeps the reader along with all the force and fury of a tsunami and in its wake it leaves a trail of debris, shattered lives and confusion. Kumar writes with intelligence, passion and scholarly investment, a distinctly Indian voice with all the elegance and exotica we expect from that mysterious, vast and magical sub-continent. Predominantly a love story written at a manic, heady pace, the object of the protagonist's passion, Maya, leaves the reader breathless with her snake-like twists and turns and obscene cruelty. It is difficult to stomach the hold that Maya has over Pikshu, affectionately nicknamed BB, but who hasn't been locked into the hypnotic trance of a charming lover?
We have all met a Maya, a charismatic, charming, sexually provocative enchanter who sweeps you up with proclamations of unyielding devotion and promises of heaven on earth. Who hasn't sold their soul for a kiss? Maya more than lives up to the Greek meaning of her name: the supernatural power of gods and demons to create illusion and Maya is a master or rather, mistress of illusion, unfettered, unrestrained, demanding of attention she plays centerstage in every gender-bending scenario. She has her mother and husband on a taut, strained band and her new lover, the young and beautiful Pikshu so enthralled she gives up her life for the chance to create a brand new one with her lover.
Elegant and elegiac, Kumar's writing is poetic and scholarly at once and the turgid scenes with Maya are tempered by and interspersed with highly philosophical expositions of politics, society, spirituality, and life.
A romance, but not just a romance, a call to arms for anyone whose soul is at risk of maya, the illusion of completion through romantic love.
Fortunately for our heroine, her drifting lifeboat finds anchor in two solid and magnificently centered parents and a coterie of wonderful friends invested in keeping her balanced.
And sidelining the roller-coaster love affair is a tourist's guide through an India most Westerners have never seen, an India steeped in glamour and intoxicating scenery, brought to visceral life by Kumar's eloquent and descriptive prose.
Truly a masterful debut novel with a sublime touch of magic realism.
- Wendy Waters, Australian Novelist
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| About the Author |
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Asha G Kumar is a writer, educator, thinker, and an eternal optimist. Armed with a Masters in English Literature and 14 years experience as an educator, heading the English department dovetails with a lifelong enthusiasm for literature. After chasing deadlines, negotiating nerve wracking schedules and trying to infuse love towards the written word during the course of a day, it is the world of books, the land of fantasy and the fervor of writing that keeps her motivated. In this debut novel, alongside the potency of love, she explores the limits to women's freedom and debunks several stereotypes associated with modern Indian women and their passion. Her debut collection of poems, Meandering Expressions, was self-published in October 2020 and is available on Amazon as an ebookAsha is working on her second collection of poems - Moods, Moorings and Memories as well as her second novel, Trysts with Life, a saga of 3 women and their indefatigable spirit. Besides writing, she enjoys public speaking, travel, bird watching and photography. |
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