The Other Side of Her — by Hari Kumar K
Publisher: Srishti Publishers & Distributors
Pages: 192
Price: Rs. 195 INR(Paperback), Rs. 60 INR(Kindle Edition)
ISBN: 978–9387022416
Buy here: https://amzn.to/2NNQeRN
Bestselling romance writer Revati Krishna had everything that a girl could wish for — A sparkling career, a thriving fan-base and a perfect love life. However, life is not always a bed of roses… Sometimes, there appear thorns. An unfortunate car accident turns her life upside down.
To start over her life, Revati moves to a sleepy hill station where she gets entangled with a murder that happened 15 years ago.
On the pretext of writing a book, she starts investigating into the matter and finds striking evidence which otherwise could never be found. But she doesn’t know that she has put her own life in danger.
How far will one woman go to give justice to a dead girl?
The answer lies in that incident which happened 15 years ago. The incident which shall tell the world… The Other Side of Her story.
About the author:
Hari Kumar K is a bestselling author and screenwriter. Continuing with his fascination for the unknown, Hari has written 2 books and 2 films in the paranormal genre. He is one of the top horror, thriller writers of India.
My take on the book:
Revathi has all the happiness in the world – a very loving husband, a baby waiting to come into their lives, a flourishing career as bestselling author famous across the country. But life has other plans when her world turns upside down with a single car accident, as she loses her husband Aarav and her unborn baby. Revathi, in addition to suffering physical injuries is unable to come out of her grief and is diagnosed with depression by their family doctor. In an attempt to help her move on, Revathi’s sister Ruchika takes her along to her husband Vishu’s hometown, which is a quaint place in the mountains. Ruchika also gets Revathi a job in the same school where she teaches, so that Revathi can get busy and forget her past.
However, things get worse as Revathi starts hearing voices at home and at school, sees visions, hallucinates, walks into the woods in the middle of the night, gets injured to the extent of endangering her life. Instead of soothing her tense nerves, the surroundings turn Revathi insane. Cracking the mystery behind Revathi’s new state of mind as she gets pulled more and more into an alternate world forms the rest of the story.
The story starts off as Revathi’s love story and soon the mystery builds as Revathi moves to her sister’s home. The story suffers a slight slump as the new turn of events take some time to make sense and once Revathi understands the connection between the things happening around her, the story moves at breakneck speed. The story keeps alternating between multiple elements— psychological thriller, paranormal saga, horror and mystery.
Even though the second half gets predictable at places, the setting of story in the hill station, the house where Revathi stays, the school, the characters that keep surfacing from the mystery and how the past and present are tied together, keep the narration engaging. I personally would have loved a better ending with a more logical explanation and that which was inclined more towards a psychological thriller. Pick this one to read a very engaging thriller filled with good twists to keep the reader hooked till the end. No wonder this story is already made into a webseries ‘Bhram’ with prominent actors on a leading OTT platform.
My rating:
4/5.