A book launch and two preorders
Hint: Everything doesn’t have to suck!
Dear friends,
My new Young Adult novel Everything Sucks published by Speaking Tiger is being launched on 24 August at Atta Galatta. Details below! Please consider this a personal invite and do come and say hi! (and buy books!) Sudeshna and I will be in conversation and I’m sure it’s going to be a lot of fun.
Meanwhile, on the KDP front, we have two books coming up – A Love to Embrace and A Kiss to Reclaim. Both books are part of the Hotel Moonshine series, which I published in late 2022. I didn’t return to this series in 2023 for various reasons but felt it needed to end properly and so, here we are. I’ve also put up the preorder for book 4 that’s all the way off in January, right now, because I didn’t want to leave it to chance. I know that if I’ve put up a preorder, I’m going to have to write it anyhow. And well, this is a story that I really do want to write. So, here we are!
Here’s an excerpt from the book
As he approached the car, he noticed that the other girl Archana had dozed in the backseat. When Sunaina sat in the passenger seat beside him, she looked a little self-conscious. He noticed her hands in her lap as he started the car.
‘I am so sorry about all this,’ she began. He frowned.
‘About?’
‘All that,’ she indicated the backseat with her thumb.
Prashant smiled. ‘It’s fine. You get used to a lot of stuff as a doctor.’
Sunaina didn’t respond to that and Prashant had the urge to fill the silence with some words at least. ‘Maybe you should bring her to the hospital and get her checked out for vertigo,’ he suggested.
Her eyebrows went up. ‘Oh!’
‘She’s probably fine but there’s no harm right?’ he asked.
Sunaina nodded. ‘Sure. I hope Gayatri aunty doesn’t get too worried about this,’ she said in a low voice. Prashant presumed that was Archana’s mother.
‘Why would she get worried?’ he asked.
‘The two of them just have each other. There’s no one else,’ Sunaina said.
‘That’s sad,’ Prashant said with a nod. ‘But she seems quite…’ He wasn’t quite sure what to say that would describe the other girl appropriately. ‘Bubbly?’
For some reason, that seemed to have pissed off Sunaina who crossed her arms and she gave a tight smile but she didn’t say anything.
There he went again, with his foot in the mouth syndrome around this girl although this time he was truly perplexed. He didn’t know what he’d done to deserve her annoyance. He decided to keep his mouth shut for the rest of the journey.
As they neared the town, she finally spoke up again to give him directions to reach her house. He followed the directions avidly and then stopped before her house.
‘Thank you for dropping us doctor,’ she said.
‘It’s just Prashant,’ he said.
She lifted her eyebrows.
‘I mean, when I’m not in the hospital. You can call me Prashant.’
She didn’t reply to that and belatedly he realised that she must be wondering what opportunity there would be for her to call him by his first name.
She got down and then opened the back passenger door and gently shook Archana. ‘Hey, we’re home,’ she said.
Archana woke up and winced and then got down. ‘Thank you, Doctor!’ she said as she got out. Sunaina’s eyes met his, as she probably waited for him to tell her the same thing that he’d told her. But finally, feeling a little of his mojo return, Prashant just nodded and Archana walked into the house. He hoped Sunaina realised that he was Prashant to her and Doctor to Archana and there was a valid reason for that. But Sunaina said nothing as she shut the door gently.
‘Good night,’ he called out.
‘Good night, Prashant,’ she said softly.
In other news, my good friend Shilpa Suraj is bringing out the third book of her Dynasty Rebel series, and I’m most certain that this one is my favourite. I have the good fortune of being her beta reader and Harsh and Raashi’s story is simply fabulous. Married in Rage is out tomorrow and you can pre-order it here! Don’t forget to check out the other books in the series – Married in Hate and Married in Deceit as well.
Some free books!
