This Week's Featured
General Fiction
Ocean in a Drop
by Tami Shaikh
Ocean in a Drop by Tami Shaikh follows the life stories of three siblings: Miraj, Adam and Asad. Told through varying narrative voices, the novel explores the complexities of family life and how siblings can grow up, grow apart and ultimately find their own happiness.
Alternating between Pakistan and The United States, the story transports its readers with its characters as they maneuver new worlds and must grow to meet the challenges. There are themes around domestic abuse, gay romance in traditional Pakistan, terrorism and the fear of becoming just like the generation that preceded. Through the stories of the three siblings, Shaikh allows an exploration of these complex themes while at the same time using them to push her story forward. There are subtle complexities to each narrative and readers will enjoy getting to know the characters.
One problem with the novel is its constant change in narrative voice. While the chapters are given headings, the switching voices sometimes add little to the plot and they do not provide real character development. There are also chapters, named “Ten Years Later” and “Regrets,” which both relate to Miraj, and yet do not follow the preceding format of chapters named by character. This and some spelling and grammatical mistakes are the main problems with Ocean in a Drop. All of which could be fixed with a good editor.
Overall, Shaikh has written a book that has family at its heart. It looks at past failings and how generations learn and grow within the family structure. There are loves lost, trauma and the hope of a better future. Ocean in a Drop has an honest story at heart and will leave the reader with a chance to take part in that family journey.
More books to check out!
You decide if they're rock stars.
You decide if they're rock stars.
When best laid plans fall apart...
Lyna is all set to marry a movie mogul, when she finds his pregnant ex at her office, begging her to break the engagement and keep her name out of it. Forced to take her flirtatious boss Guy's help, she sets about to break the engagement. But now she's pulled into deeper involvement with Guy.
One trouble leads to another!
She agrees to visit his palatial country house, posing as his fiancée and is drawn into the family and their antics. Sorting out who's who takes time. A stringent grandfather, an ambitious mother, a frustrated half brother are only the beginning!
Attraction makes things complicated...
Propinquity with someone as charming and attractive as Guy doesn't help. But Guy himself is as much of a puzzle as ever. Is he the playboy she thinks him or is there someone else beneath the sardonic pose? Will she ever find out?
Will she break her heart in the process?
Lyna is all set to marry a movie mogul, when she finds his pregnant ex at her office, begging her to break the engagement and keep her name out of it. Forced to take her flirtatious boss Guy's help, she sets about to break the engagement. But now she's pulled into deeper involvement with Guy.
One trouble leads to another!
She agrees to visit his palatial country house, posing as his fiancée and is drawn into the family and their antics. Sorting out who's who takes time. A stringent grandfather, an ambitious mother, a frustrated half brother are only the beginning!
Attraction makes things complicated...
Propinquity with someone as charming and attractive as Guy doesn't help. But Guy himself is as much of a puzzle as ever. Is he the playboy she thinks him or is there someone else beneath the sardonic pose? Will she ever find out?
Will she break her heart in the process?
Cousins’ Club, a satirical novel, erupts when a grandmother decides she is tired of being the matriarch of the least successful Jewish family in America. She consults mystical medieval texts that divine the next born grandchild will be a genius who will change their fortunes. But her worries do not stop there. She is also convinced that no one in her clan is smart enough to raise a genius by themselves. Her solution—the child will be passed from household to household to gain their collective wisdom.
This picaresque romp takes place in 1950’s Brooklyn. The unusual events and the menagerie of characters, which includes radical rogues, cockeyed intellectuals, and pie-eyed strivers, will be familiar to readers of Phillip Roth, Bruce Jay Friedman, and Stanley Elkin.
In the end, this fantastical story about family begs the question—how wrong can a grandmother be?
This picaresque romp takes place in 1950’s Brooklyn. The unusual events and the menagerie of characters, which includes radical rogues, cockeyed intellectuals, and pie-eyed strivers, will be familiar to readers of Phillip Roth, Bruce Jay Friedman, and Stanley Elkin.
In the end, this fantastical story about family begs the question—how wrong can a grandmother be?
El Hermano takes place during the forty days of Lent in 1928 as José and his cousins conspire to spy on one of the brotherhood’s secret rituals to see what lies ahead for them as novices. José knows his time to join the cofradías (of which his own father is Hermano Mayor) is near, but having seen Hermanos who appear to be in pain after a night spent at the morada, a meeting house and chapel, and having heard stories about those who even died in the past because of whatever went on within the sacred structure, his fear guides him to join his cousins in their clandestine scheme. Little do they know, certain New Mexican legends conspire against them; La Muerte , Saint Death, warns José to leave his future unknown, a ball of fire thought to be a witch crosses their path, and even la Llorona, ghost of the Weeping Woman, and el Diablo, the Devil make an appearance.
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