Neha's Notebook

The Lost Apothecary by Sarah Penner As I closed the book after reading it, the book left me with a lonely feeling. The world presented in the book was so immersive and intriguing that it had such an effect on me. I did not want to leave this world once dived into it. The Lost Apothecary by Sarah Penner is a bestselling historical fiction novel based in the setting of London. It is a story of 3 women, and countless other women who desired to take control of their lives. The novel presents the story of three protagonist women character named Nella, Eliza and Caroline. While Nella is a 17th century apothecary, Caroline is a present-day aspiring historical researcher. Nella has a shop in which she secretly sells poisons to the women who want to get rid of the men who have betrayed or wronged them. She works hard to brew every poison working day and night in the disguised corner of her shop. She has only two rules – that her poisons will never be used against any woman...

The Book Thief by Markus Zusak Death. Imagine what if death was a person. And this person could speak. Imagine if you could hear it speak, and all of a sudden, it opened its mouth and began narrating to you, a story about a girl; a girl who was a thief, a thief who stole books… The Book Thief by Marcus Zusak, is a historical fiction novel. The novel is written in a third-person narrative. But even more interesting an aspect about this narrative is its narrator. The narrator here, is not a human. Rather, the narrator is ‘death’. Yes! In this novel, the narrator is none other than the character of Death. Death narrates the story of a girl named Liesel Meminger. But the story is not only about this girl who relishes words and steals books. The story is also about a small street called Himmel Street, in a small town of Germany, precisely during the rule of Adolf Hitler, the Führer. The story is also about the people and the children and the families living in the boxl...

The Tainted Throne by Alex Rutherford The crevices splintered into the fabric of a soul that is fragmented and wounded with lovelessness and anguish, cannot be filled as likely as an ointment may fill the wound of a flesh. The reaction to which, usually, is a tainted heart…and so, a tainted throne too! ‘The Tainted Throne’ is the fourth book in the ’Empire of the Moghuls’ series written by Alex Rutherford. Consecutively, the novel depicts the story of the fourth Moghul emperor Jahangir, followed by Babur, Humayun and Akbar. Post the death of the third Mughal emperor, Akbar, the dynasty of Moghuls tripped in imbalance; like a goblet of poison skiddering sideways and spilling itself till the entire sky was gathered with venomous shadows of doom and gloom. Punch-drunk by negligence, impulsiveness and lust for power, the map of the Moghul empire began to experience cracks, here and there, until, it neared its tearing downfall followed by total collapse. Jahangir a.k.a...

Ruler of the World by Alex Rutherford When we think of the Mughal emperor Akbar, what we usually think of is, “ Akbar, the Great! ”. In fact, even the name Akbar implies the meaning “great”. Withal, in reality, emperor Akbar’s life was not ‘all-great’. Rather, it was a bittersweet symphony playing somewhere between a trumpeter's buzzing tunes of achievement and a sitarist’s mellow drones of loneliness. But of course, a stark personification of greatness, it was, though. Akbar’s father, Humayun, died as abruptly as an avalanche, one evening in Delhi’s Red Fort a.k.a. Purana Qila . He was only twelve-years old at the time of his father’s death. This was the time when the Moghuls were only re-settling their empire in the Hindustan provinces. Their rule was still quite vulnerable to threats. And so, to protect this boy emperor from a giant score of enemies lurking everywhere around them, Akbar was hidden from the view of the public and secretly ridden away from th...

Brothers At War by Alex Rutherford “Ambition corrupts wisdom.” Shakespeare used to say… No one knows whether this is true or not, in a general sense, however, in the life-story of Humayun, this saying could be witnessed in a chunk of reality absolutely crystalline. Typically and mostly, in the history’s narratives, Humayun is depicted to be a spoilt ruler, who brought much downfall to the Mughal dynasty due to his carelessness, addictions and over-sensitivity of emotion. Well, this is true; only partly however. While his father, Babur, built the fledgling Mughal empire from scratch, on the other side, Humayun was born mollycoddled in the silken chambers of the royal; already dolled up in glittering gems from head to toe and feasting on the delicacies of the shahi rasoi of the sun-baked sandstoned Agra Fort. Also, this is true on the account that Humayun had an obsession with stargazing and cosmic symbolism. He even had a time period in his life, when he would wear...

Raiders from the North by Alex Rutherford My rating: 0 of 5 stars While the twelve-year old prince Babur is witnessing the sight of pinkening hilltop sunset standing alongside his father, his destiny takes a sharp turn as his father surmises into the dark night of death; leaving a mere young boy that he is, to govern the throne of his kingdom. Young he might be, but the blood of his ancestors - of the warriors like Genghis Khan and Timur, flows in his veins. So, afraid and nervous as he is, shaky and stunned as he is, he wipes his tears and rises to the occasion, ready to put his feet into the deadly ocean of fire, as enemies lurk and lurch all around him, keen for a tiny crack of chance, to wipe his name off the planet and to employ their own puppet-candidate to rule the throne and gain booty. With the help of a few trusted chiefs, his mother and his mighty grandmother Esan Dawlat, he allows himself to look past his beads of anxious sweat, as the kh...