Was it Love? — by Neha Sultania
Publisher: Srishti Publishers & Distributors
Pages: 192
Price: Rs. 195 INR(Paperback)
ISBN: 978–9387022300
Buy here: https://amzn.to/2LO8Kcb
Leila Rajput is a young girl, struggling with life and relationships, dealing with the trauma of a past life-event. Unaware of her true potential, she has almost given up on life, till she meets this dynamic, near-perfect Vikrant Rao via internet. He identifies her potential and offers her a strange arrangement to be her mentor.
He teaches her the basics of life, makes her realize her dreams and helps her in achieving them step by step. Under his guidance, she evolves into a confident and independent woman. They eventually fall in love and Vikrant relocates to her city, where he meets her friend Maya. While he solves Maya’s life conflicts and helps her elope with Shahan, he charges a fee none could ever imagine.
Is Vikrant a villain or a victim of greed? Did he truly love Leila or was she just a puppet to reach his next victim?
Was it Love? is a story of Leila’s journey through emotions, trials, betrayal and the devil called love.
About the author:
Neha Sultania belongs to a culturally rich Punjabi family that originally hails from undivided India, now Pakistan.
After her post-graduation in Business Administration, she took up banking as her career choice. A creative bent of mind has made her inclination strongly towards storytelling and poetry. Interest in mysteries and mystical nature of the universe has also made her wander into the deep occult sciences, making her a student of Vedic astrology.
My take on the book:
Leyla is struggling with her past traumatic events, lack of empathy from her family and with a relationship with a family friend Avi which is not sure of. Just when she gives up all hopes on life, Vikrant enters her life as a mentor only to slowly become her world and finally to a situation where she completely surrenders to him emotionally. Vikrant lifts Leyla from her supposed darkness, helps her to start living life, encourages and helps her with her higher education, in getting a job; Vikrant in short becomes Leyla’s lifeline.
As they turn from mentor-mentee to good friends, Vikrant relocates to Delhi to be with Leyla as they get into a serious relationship. All seems to be going well till Leyla introduces her childhood friend and now colleague Maya. While Leyla requests Vikrant to help Maya in sorting her future and her relation with Shahan, Leyla doesnt expect then that this is gonna change all their loves forever.
This is story of a young girl who is struggling emotionally with little help from her parents, siblings and close ones. It showcases the vulnerabilities such girls are exposed to and how they can get into more trouble by trusting strangers. While the story as a whole is not very new, the way it unfolds is very interesting. All through, the story is about the mind games being played between individuals and how sometimes innocent souls can get entangled into vicious plans without realizing. The reader keeps guessing the intentions of each of the character and how much are they true per their external appearance and what really is going on in the background.
This mystery of trying to understand the psyche of the main characters is what holds the readers interest till the end. Some parts in the middle when Leyla and Vikrant start exploring each other gets a bit tedious, but otherwise the story maintains the tempo till the end. If you are a keen observer, you can spot who is the devil and who the angel but still would want to read till the end to see the suspense unfold.
Pick this one to read an offbeat love story which keeps you guessing till the end and the mind games between the characters are sure to keep you on the edge.
My rating:
4/5.