Title: Lies Look Like Love
Author: Bijaya Kumar Mishra
Publisher: Invincible Publishers
Genre: Mystery Thriller, Romance
First Publication: 2022
Language: English
Book Summary: Lies Look Like Love by Bijaya Kumar Mishra
Maya’s world is shattered after the untimely demise of her caring husband, Ansh. Amid her grief, her worst fear appears before her in the form of a stalker who forces her to question her own sanity. But she knows that she must face her fear and discover the stalker’s real identity. Moreover, she must protect some secrets in her small, rainy, forest town, where it’s really hard to keep secrets.
When Ravi, a bachelor in his thirties, moves into the outhouse of Maya’s villa, he is intrigued by the strange rumors going round the town about the villa and Maya’s sisters. He gradually gets close to Maya and her sisters. Love blossoms in the villa again. But sometimes lies look like love.
As Ravi tries to delve into the mysterious privacy of the villa, malicious motives and murderous intentions surface to put lives and relationships at stake. Truth must be unveiled before it’s too late.
Book Review: Lies Look Like Love by Bijaya Kumar Mishra
Lies Look Like Love by Bijaya Kumar Mishra is a spellbinding mystery romance novel in the most beautiful and captivating of settings: A small, rainy, forest town. This story kicks off in the midst of an emotionally charged moment of despair – setting the stage for the chilling mysteries that lie ahead. But as the pages turned, I realised that this level of intensity wasn’t limited to the intriguing introduction – and that every single piece of this story was in fact just as powerful.
The story begins at a villa in a remote place, where Maya has just lost her husband, Ansh, and the plot develops from there. When she meets Ravi, a new tenant in Maya’s Villa and a research scholar in herbs, she is depressed and grieving over the death of her husband. She is carrying a profound secret with her that she is not able to share with anybody. After she finds consolation in Ravi, her life takes an unexpected turn, she begins to trust in love once again, and everything changes. However, the narrative takes unforeseen twists in Maya’s life, as with her new found love comes new lies. Dark, moody, and with a sense of foreboding, Lies Look Like Love boldly delivers a generous combo of suspense, mystery, unconventional love, and heart wrenching scenarios.
When I first heard about this book, one of the things that piqued my interest and left me wondering was what the title truly meant — and there’s a very particular point in the novel when the title is echoed in the story that simply had such a powerful impact on me as I read it. The story is narrated in a straightforward way, which contrasts nicely with the poignant subject matter it deals with. The writing is graceful, straightforward, and not excessively expressive.
Lies Look Like Love is a mind-bending whirligig of a novel that is fiendishly smart and full of twists and turns. It’s a hall of mirrors where everything, even the people who live there, is a distorted image of themselves. Author Bijaya lures, tricks, and sets obstacles to drive you into his toils. With his unreliable characters, he creates a universe that is at once baffling, scary, and delightful, drawing you into a world where illusion influences reality and time envelops you in a haunting embrace of mystery and joy. Before I knew it, I had been entangled in this narrative and was unable to free myself from its grasp.
By placing us in the same unnerving darkness as Maya, author Bijaya creates a blanket of dread and bewilderment around the reader. Danger pulsates in every direction. Every page is like skating on a very thin sheet of ice. However, despite the fact that you can’t see the freshly hideous future taking form in front of you, you can feel it nonetheless. I’m not discussing it on purpose since the fact that it comes as a surprise to you as the reader is really essential because it’s also unexpected for the heroine. As Maya comes to comprehend the gravity of the situation she finds herself in, so will you. And this realisation allows you to experience her journey with her in a significant way.
This book has an extraordinarily strong message that is very delicately weaved into it from the very beginning. When the story starts, you aren’t aware of how crucial each of these events is until you read on, and as you read, these pieces of the story come together to build a scenario that provides such a raw, honest picture of a very pertinent subject that is so relevant.
The way this story is mapped out and how it gradually unfolds is incredibly creative. Every word used is carefully selected and holds an importance that will eventually be revealed. Even the subtleties will ultimately tie into the final grand picture. This is obviously no easy feat for a writer, but I must admit that it came across as graceful and entirely effortless. One of my favourite aspects of this story was the ease of the dialogue and how truly natural and real it all felt. Highly recommended.
