Praise for State of the Heart

#1 Best Seller in Short Stories on Amazon (February 2014). Some of the stories will drive you to tears! The writing does justice to the little things in life that add to its beauty and mystery – Goodreads, Average Rating: 4.

The State Of The Heart of the Press is very good indeed

Nowadays, its becoming a common trend for a spare time blogger to take his or her writing skills seriously and produce a book under his flagship in no time. But State of the Heart by Nelton D'Souza is something that goes beyond the conventional. Mixing fact with just the perfect dose of fiction he spins stories around the subtle nuances of life bordering the delicate elements like relationships and love making sure that daily occurrences get a place to talk about and simple acts of gratitude get addressed. Continuously taking the reader through a roller-coaster of emotions while never letting lose his grip, he leaves them with a lesson they never learnt and a perspective they never saw and wanting for more.

To write a story one needs to read a lot. But to actually pen down stories on common people, one requires a keen observation while being oblivious to the world; after all its only then when people are themselves. From Addiction – the dark desire to My Encounter with the Berlyn Wall – where your best friend becomes your worst fear to The Love Letter – which reminds us of love and its various dimensions and forms to The Chief Ministers Independence Day Speech – where we realize how we and the CM see the state of affairs in our state to The Greatest of the All – where love, boldness and intelligence get personified to Its not Easy – which speaks of bondage and the inability to break free from a bad relationship, every story strikes a chord and delivers a punch.

In times where our morality hits a new low every day, Nelton provides a perfect friend at the need of the hour – the Almighty Himself. From lamenting over the death of a beggar to mentioning the plight of a young couple shifting to a haunted house - the author briskly narrates the events just like a bystander while making every character relatable to the reader.

By profession Nelton DSouza is a Consultant at Capgemini. His forte can be well defined as a coder by profession and a free flowing story teller during his leisure time. His writing pad is none other than his blog Just A Minute. It was his long cherished desire to become as author. With State of Heart this dream will fitfully get realized.

For a complete list of stores to purchase the book from visit http://bit.ly/SOTHStore

Book : State of the Heart

Author : Nelton D'Souza

ISBN : 978-93-83271-32-0

Price : Rs.199.00

Publishing Date: August 2013

Publisher: Power Publishers

Language: English

Presenting my first book - State of the Heart

Ramakrishnan Subramaniam, Head, Internal Systems, Syntel Inc calls it a wonderful collection of short stories covering so many beautiful facets of human relationships.

Anish Sarkar, Author, Benaami, says its a collection of heartwarming stories which makes you believe in the beauty of life. 

Need we say more?

Presenting the 'State of the Heart' - short stories on relationships, love and life. 
My book has been nothing short of a dream come true that has survived the test of time. After a year of writing the stories the following 6 months only saw constant rejections from publishers and delays – change of project, extended hours at office with no weekends and my father’s sudden illness. 


An outcome of my observation of the people around me, be it in the bus to work or on the street, my book has stories about real people -  the ones you didn't think were so interesting. In short, it could be a story about you or someone like you. My book may not be a great piece of literature but yes, behind every single word you shall find immense passion. 

It shall be available for purchase online (autographed and at a discount) from 31st August. In addition, a part of the proceeds of every book will go towards charity. 
Links and details to be shared soon on www.neltondsouza.com

You can also win 3 personally signed copies of my book. For details visit http://www.facebook.com/AuthorNeltonDSouza/posts/317077528437485

Book Review: Law of Averages

Book:- Law of Averages

Author:- Kshitish Padhy

ISBN:- 978-93-324-2005-2

Genre:- Fiction/Romantic

Price:- 140 (I got this book directly from the Author for review)

Pages: 252

Publisher:- Paperclip Books

Introduction:
Whatever has happened has happened for good, whatever is happening is also for good, and whatever will happen, will also happen for the good only. These are the words of sacred Bhagavad Gita and I am sure the wordings may change the language may differ but these are the principles of all the religions of this world. No I am not talking of any mythological novel, what I am talking is a story of a fiction based on the principle stated above.  Yes this is an art of fiction but based on the biggest truth of life. The story will remind you of melodramatic romantic movie of a person who considers himself looser of life losing at all quarters but at the end realizes his loses were in fact the greatest success anybody can dream off.
This story is action packed sequence of romance, capriciousness, freakish, weirdo acts of a person to win his love.

The cover of the page needs a special mention as it will give you enough requisites about the author or the story that you will confront. The title of the Story “Law Of Averages” is an apt considering the lead’s mentality and his present state. The posters at front are a sure intimation of the author’s link with the comics world and the untagged images will definitely make you appreciate the carefully wound pictures relating to zest of the main story once you finish up with the reading.

About the Author:
Law of Averages is the debut novel of Kshitish Padhy. Kshitish is a versatile scriptwriter, novelist and translator working on various genres like mythology, superhero fantasy, teen fiction and fiction for young adults. After starting his writing career as a translator at Raj Comics, he has contributed to the scripts of their flagship characters like Nagraj, Super Commando Dhruva and Bhokal. Completing a brief stint with Campfire Comics, Kshitish is currently working as the lead scriptwriter for Vimanika Comics and on mythological titles like Shiva and Dasavtaar. He is an avid reader of comics and children fiction and is a huge fan of Harry Potter, Tintin, Daredevil and Batman. He loves action movies high on special effects and detective thrillers. Kshitish currently resides in Delhi.

Compositional Report:
This story revolves around a not so lucky person Ritwik (Main Character) who has the gifted ability to lose each and every battle of life no matter how small it may be. Beginning with a brief background of Ritwik, the story bludgeoned when Ritwik’s plan to move up the ladder too fast too soon overpowered his present condition, which finally landed him to give up his dreams after a failed attempt. It wasn’t actually a failed attempt as the journey to Meerut for fulfilling a dream had coincidentally greeted not only Ritwik but also Sushant (Ritwik’s coworker at Raj comics who had an expertise to illustrate) to meet their Dream girl and it was just the beginning of coincidences, as the story moved forward it was endowed with numerous such twists and turns.

Sushant Ritwik’s partner for crime played his part pretty well, commencing from a helping hand to get the deal from the Sunshine comics to being Ritwik’s room partner for his would be father in laws flat. It was Sushant’s luck or whatever you may call; it made Ritwik jealous at times as he was the one who was making inroads to Arpita (Sushant’s Love) by doing the right things at the pertinent moment. One drawback which Sushant had was his open shrillness which often landed both of them into trouble and it was up to Ritwik’s sheer determination to forgo all limits to appease his father in law for the love of his life, which provoked him to bear each and everything.

Shubhangi, Ritwik’s love was kind a classical Indian girl, who in spite of loving Ritwik wholeheartedly wasn’t ready to overboard partly because of his rather orthodox Father Professor A.K Khurana, her younger sister’s(Tanya) revolt and also being adorned without a mother made her extra cautious in her move. But that didn’t deter her help Ritwik to win over her father to consider Ritwik as a future groom.

Professor A.K Khurana, a retired from Archaeological survey of department was a disciplinarian and an obese with hidden treasures was not only mimicked by people around but also had the blame deciphered against his name to almost landing their family to the streets for his obsession.  He had a unique ability of messing up at the critical situations but it was Ritwik who noticed the genius in him and believed in his theories which finally yielded gold.

There were moments which can dissuade a person to fall apart but it was Ritwik and his sheer brilliance which proved him to be a winner at the end mainly because of his spirits and determination which paved his way through to the journey of ‘Laws of averages’.  It would be injustice if I miss the Creditable  efforts of Sushant, Arpita, Shubhangi, Professor A.K Khurana, Wishumaddy (Ritwik’s and Sushant’s Coworker), Sanjay sir (Ritwik’s boss at raj comics), Captain Jayant (Shubhangi’s Sister Tanya’s boyfriend) who carried through their roles at critical times to salvage the most entertaining start for Ritwik’s and Shubhangi’s New Life.

It was a perfect photo finish to the enthralling romantic story written in a totally Bollywood style, which would make the readers go week in their knees to finish it at a single go. For me the last quarter is a match winner as it has all the ingredients of making up to a movie script. It’s a story for all ages. A downright entertainer with crafty twists and turns makes it a very good read.






Life’s Adjudication of this book:
This book is best read to enlighten one’s spirit at leisure time. It has the credibility of a ‘feel good’ emotions.