Nagasravika's Book Reviews Blog

 We Used to Live Here  By Marcus Kleiwer  Published Year: 2024 Page Count: 270 pages  Medium Used; Kindle Scribe  Genre: Dark, Lesbians, Horror, Alternate Realities, Ghosts, Murder, Suspense. Thriller, 2026-read.  Rating: 4.5/5 😀😀😀😀🤞 Eve and Charlie are a couple who purchase, renovate and sell houses for profit. They have bought a mansion 3709, situated on a 5 acre plot, surrounded by mountains, forests and ponds, on Heritage Lane. It is a secluded spot, located far from nearby establishments. For example, It would take over 2 hours to get help in case of medical emergencies or police assistance. But still, they love the house and buy it. The interior is cluttered with relics, old furniture covered in dust and they project an year for clearing it up. They plan on demolishing the house and building new from scratch.  One day, a family of five arrive on their footstep with a strange request. Charlie is out of the house and Eve receives them. The Fau...

 Private Rites  By Julia Armfield  Finalist for Arthur C Clarke Award 2025 Published Year: 2024  Page Count: 235 pages  Medium Used: Kindle PW  Genre: Dystopian, Horror, Drama,Dysfunctional Families, Science Fiction, Coming of Age, LGBTQ,2026-read.  Rating: 3/5 😀😀😇 I came across this book while browsing the shelves of Arthur Clarke Award nominees for 2025. Immediately taken in by the idea of a story loosely based on King Lear and his three daughters, I picked it, setting aside three other books I was reading at that point. The dominant thought running in my mind all the time I was reading was, where is this story going? I also remember thinking, at multiple points, that the author is not a sensational storyteller. But I was resolute to not give in to the voice in my head prompting me to DnF and see the book through to the end. Having finished, I have ambivalent feelings for this. I liked the character development and appreciate the fact that there a...

 Sea of Tranquility  By Emily St. John Mandel  Published Year: 2022 Page Count: 166 pages  Medium Used: Kindle PW  Genre: Science Fiction, Time Travel, Colonization of Space, Mystery, Suspense, 2026-read.  Rating: 5/5 ❤❤❤❤❤ In the year 1912, on a Caiette island, off the shore of British Columbia, a young man experiences a time space anomaly. He stands under a maple tree and in a flash of darkness, hears violin playing, airship taking off before he is brought back to reality. He becomes aware of the presence of a priest nearby whom he hasn't seen before and soon after, the priest vanishes. The young man - a Edwin St. John - brushes away the experience as one where he is hallucinating and probably experienced some derangement of the brain. Similar experience is recorded towards the end of 20th century when a music composer Paul Smith, while playing his orchestra, shows a video footage where the glitch is obvious. Then, in a separate incident in the 22nd centu...

 The Widow  by John Grisham   Published Year: 2025 Page Count: 416 pages  Medium Used: Kindle Scribe Genre: Court Room Drama, Suspense, Crime Thriller, Murder Mystery, Contemporary Fiction, 2026-read. Rating: 3.25/5 I guess I cannot write a review, driving my points across, without introducing all the main players in the story. Simon Latch is an estate lawyer - attorney and counselor at law - dealing in wills and bankruptcy cases from a small town of Braxton, Virginia. He has been at his gig for over eighteen years and is working his routine cases without much enthusiasm. He has a strained relationship with his wife, Paula and he seems to care enough for their kids to not miss any of the major events in their lives. He hasn't got divorced with his wife because they simply haven't got the money to go through with the proceedings. He regularly plays video poker and gambles small amounts at a joint run by a bookie Chub. His secretary Matilda has been working for him fo...

  The Little Stranger   By Sarah Waters   Published Year: 2009 Page Count: 512 pages  Medium Used: Kindle Scribe  Genre : Historical Fiction, Supernatural, Horror, Ghost Stories, Haunted Houses , 2026-read.  Rating: 4/5  Hundreds Hall is a two century old mansion, flanked by farm lands and gardens, invariably on a spiral of decline, neglect and ruin. The inhabitants of this house are old Mrs. Ayers, her children Roderick and Caroline, a couple of housemaids Betty and Mrs. Belazely. The narrator, Dr. Faraday, is called up to the house for consultation of a sick Betty. This visit stirs up his memories of association with the house where his mother once worked as a maid. He laments at the ruin the house has fallen into and the near poverty the family has sunk into. After that he makes himself a frequent visitor at the house, first as a physician to help with Roderick's ruined leg and later turning himself into their family doctor. This story is narrated ...

 You Like It Darker  By Stephen King  Published Year: 2024 Page Count: 500 pages  Medium Used: Kindle Scribe  Genre: Horror, Anthology, Short Stories, Supernatural, Mystery, Dark Fiction, 2026-read.  Rating : 5/5 😀😀😀😀😀 I should say a very easy, breezy 5 pointer this one gets! I bow down before the creative genius of Stephen King. I salute his knack for writing and keeping the reader hooked no matter what subject he is talking about. Because he is very versatile and very prolific in his writing. Each of these short stories carries its own weight. Each one leaves its mark in a different but sure way. There are short stories and there are longer ones .. but all contain some amount of darkness, death, mystery in them. I especially enjoyed the ones which had supernatural elements added and those with cops and detectives. The old aged male characters, I felt, spoke the language of Mr.King - exactly the way he speaks. Their thoughts and behaviors reflected hi...