Title: A Price to Love
Author: Smita Das Jain
Publisher: Readomania
Genre: Contemporary Romance
First Publication: 2022
Language: English
Book Summary: A Price to Love by Smita Das Jain
Do a stellar academic background, a well-paying job with ample recognition, and a loving life partner imply happiness?
Sonia is an ambitious woman working in the country’s most prominent media company. Sameep, her husband, has loved her ever since their IIM-Ahmedabad days. Her direct report, Mehul, idolises her, and her boss, Rishabh, acknowledges her intellectual prowess. But Sonia’s past interferes with the present, making her life—and the lives of those around her— lack balance. Time flies fast but leaves shadows behind.
A Price to Love is a contemporary tale showcasing the struggles of making a thriving personal life and a successful career tango in the highly competitive corporate arena… especially if you are a woman.
Book Review: A Price to Love by Smita Das Jain
Love is not free. “Love can’t be bought with money” is something that each of us has undoubtedly heard several times in a variety of different ways and quite likely spoken ourselves on numerous occasions. While it’s true that money can’t buy love, I firmly disagree that love between two people does not have a price attached to it. When we feel genuine affection for another person, we are prepared to pay a price for that love that goes well beyond the value of silver and gold. Someone who is really in love would do everything to make their partner feel secure, happy, and fulfilled. There are an infinite number of ways in which we must pay a price to love another person.
Smita Das Jain’s A Price to Love is a powerful account of a woman’s struggle with love, heartbreak, and contrition; how her life was turned upside down by a single choice; and how she found herself somewhere between reality and the dream. The story revolves around Sonia Ajmera, a hard-working and ambitious lady who now has a career with New Era & Co. Ltd., one of the most prominent media giants in the nation. She now holds the position of Chief Manager for the company’s Digital Division. She’s married to her college best friend, Sameep Aggarwal. Ever since the two of them met at IIM-Ahmedabad, her husband, Sameep, has loved her. They have what can only be described as the “ideal” marriage. Both of them have always loved each other. But is love enough?
Rishabh, Sonia’s boss, was formerly head of the Response and Strategy department at New Era and Co. Ltd., and he is currently overseeing the Print division at the company. He appreciates Sonia’s intelligence, and he recognizes her tremendous intellectual capacity. And then there was Mehul, one of her subordinates who reports directly to her, looks up to her as a role model. However, Sonia’s past causes disruptions in the present, upsetting the harmony of her life and the lives of others around her.
Let me introduce you to Sonia. This is her story.
Sonia is a bundle of emotions including anguish, love, passion, destruction, and heartache. The events in Sonia’s life are controversial, and there are times when it is quite difficult to read. Sonia narrates most of this broken love story. The narrative shifts back and forth between the present and the past. Sonia has the kind of life that the majority of people would envy. She is married to the ideal guy, who is devoted to their marriage and swoons over her. She is in a position of prominence in her company, and the co-workers admire her and her work. Sonia should be happy about it. She ought to have a sense of accomplishment. And yet, she isn’t. As a result, she is missing a vital piece of herself. Damaged beyond repair. Sonia’s life hasn’t turned out the way she hoped. The fulfillment that she has always wanted in life is out of her reach. She is falling apart from the inside as a result of it.
As the story progresses, incidents from both the present and the past come to light, revealing secrets, deceptions, sacrifices, allegations, and opportunities for retaliation. It is about the suffocating lies we tell ourselves, the twisted truths we tell each other, and the crushing reality that we are left to deal with, which may be debilitating. Sameep makes every effort to support Sonia and have a better understanding of her position. It broke my heart reading some things from Sameep’s perspective. Sonia has a sincere desire to fulfill the role of the ideal wife, but she knows the challenges of doing so. It seems as if everything is crashing down on her at once. She is imprisoned by the circumstances of her life and cannot escape them. Nothing in her current situation is what she wants, and she can’t keep living her life like this.
“A Price to Love” was one of the most beautiful and also the most broken love story I’ve read. You’ll find yourself fuming at some situations, but the most important thing is that you’ll experience each character’s anguish. Even though they all have their flaws, the author has a way of making you care about and love these characters anyway. Simply knowing that it will be a heartbreaking end for at least one of them and perhaps all of them has saddened me. The last moments of the story were sad yet satisfying. There was a lot of tension and uncertainty. The aftermath left me with nothing to do except sit and mull over my thoughts, but a little part of me felt relieved and even delighted. All the feelings of love, passion, and desire are depicted in this raw and authentic tale.
In the end, all you need to know is that Smita Das Jain’s beautiful prose shines throughout this book, as it did in her previous book, A Slice of Life. Her characters will steal your heart and do anything they want with it once they have it. This book is filled with so much angst that you won’t know what to do with yourself by the time you’ve finished reading it. Each new page you flip will inundate you with a plethora of feelings, and you won’t be able to get a break from the experience. No exaggeration; this is the genuine beauty of this book. The heartbreak is severe. The love is uncompromising and real, despite its harshness. There is nothing that can compare to the feeling of being immersed in a love story that has so much passion and feeling packed inside its pages. Smita Das Jain has done it again!
