Every person in life has dreams & aspirations but many times or should we say, most of the times “Plans remain plans” & finally, things divert into an unplanned direction. Some of them can do anything i.e. virtually anything to achieve their dreams. If this sounds like an interesting plot straight from a Bollywood movie, than you should definitely get your hands on to Ravi Subramanian’s latest book The Bestseller She Wrote. It is a story about Love, Betrayal & Redemption.
About the author
Ravi Subramanian is an Indian author. A banker by profession, Subramanian has written popular thrillers about banking and bankers, including award winning trilogy The Incredible Banker, The Bankster and Bankerupt. An alumnus of IIM Bangalore, batch of 1993, Subramanian spent close to two decades in the financial services industry. After having worked with companies such as Citibank, HSBC and ANZ Grindlays, Subramanian is now the CEO of a listed Non-banking financial company [Source – Wikipedia]
Detailed Review
‘The Bestseller She Wrote’ is the latest novel in the Thriller genre by Ravi Subramanian with an interesting plot with many twists & turns. Like his previous books The Incredible Banker, If God was a Banker and many more, the main character of the book – Aditya Kapoor is a banker, however banking has no role to play in the entire story.
The story revolves around three characters – Aditya Kapoor, his wife Maya and Shreya Kaushik (an IIMB Student). Let’s get into the skin of each of these characters. Aditya is not only a successful banker but he is also a best-selling author (nicknamed the Paperback King). He has a loving wife Maya and they are blessed with a son. It sounds like a happy-go-lucky family from Sooraj Barjatya’s movie 🙂 But their lives becomes topsy-turvy when Shreya Kaushik enters Aditya’s life.
Shreya Kaushik is a beautiful and talented girl who is pursuing her MBA in IIM, Bengaluru. Shreya has another aspiration i.e. to become a best-selling author. As expected, they meet again. Aditya visits IIMB to give a guest talk where he ends up with an argument with Shreya over a particular question raised by her. The authorities at the college are not very happy over her behavior. In order to compensate, she reads a novel written by none other than Aditya.
Now comes the fourth character, Sanjay (Aditya’s colleague & friend) and to make things worsen for Aditya, they visit IIMB for campus hiring. Aditya again meets Shreya during the campus interviews and Shreya gets placed in Aditya’s company.
Like a good-old masala movie; from ‘Just Friends’, Aditya and Shreya become ‘Very Good Friends’. They both develop an extra-marital affair and Shreya aims to capitalize on Aditya’s feelings in order to get her novel released in the market. Life is smooth for both of them until Maya comes to know about their affair.
What’s in-store for Maya, Aditya and Shreya? Would Shreya become a best-selling author, would Aditya choose Shreya over Maya, would Maya continue to stay with Aditya or divorce him ? Would Aditya redeem himself & regain his lost self-respect ? This is where the twist comes in the story and the story races in the second-half.
The Bestseller She Wrote : Pros
Roles of all the three main leads – Aditya, Maya and Shreya are very well etched out though some more light could have been thrown on some of them.
There are references to real world names like Chetan Bhagat, HSBC, Anurag Kashyap, Poonam Saxena etc. that make the story more compelling since user’s can visualize the actual characters while reading this book. The story is fast-paced with many surprise elements coupled with emotions resulting in lot’s of twists in this thriller. And yes, Bangalore is referred as Bengaluru which was definitely a ‘welcome surprise’ for us.
With so many aspiring writers willing to become ‘Best Selling Authors’, this book definitely gives an insight into the Best-Selling game 🙂
The Bestseller She Wrote : Improvements
Some insights into Shreya’s life before she enters into IIMB could have made her character even stronger. Aditya’s son has no role to play in this entire thriller & in our opinion, he was only kept to inform the readers that Aditya and Maya were leading a happily married life.
Aditya’s friend – Sanjay also had less role to play in the entire story. In some cases, there were minor grammatical errors that could have been avoided.
Closing Thoughts
The book provides an “Edge Of the Seat” thriller experience & the “Plot” creates this experience !!! The book is written in very simple language. Strong Characters are the backbone of this book. We really enjoyed the whole journey 
At around 295 pages, The Bestseller She Wrote is definitely a book recommended for readers who love the ‘Thriller’ genre
Final Verdict – 3.5/5
Thanks Mr Ravi Subramanian for sending us an auto-graphed copy of the book 🙂 This review is a part of the biggest Book Review Program for Indian Bloggers. Participate now to get free books !
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