Book Review: Jugnu By Ruchi Singh

Pulling your heart strings!!!

I have always had a fascination for Jugnu/ firefly in my mother tongue minnaminungu... Still, today if I see a firefly it excites me to no bounds... 

Jugnu by Ruchi Singh not only held me because of the name but I had loved reading Ruchi Singh's Take 2. And trust me I never felt sorry even for a moment. Book helped me restore the excitement I have for fireflies.  My other two and I had absolutely a good time reading this book. A very different love story, yes ‘love story’ because I like to term this book a love story, not just a romance. Instead of an alpha male as normal in romances here we have a very young man out on a parole, running from his past and trying to find his solace in writing. And a woman who is stuck in a space where she is struggling without an answer about her missing husband and a family with her son, mother in law and sister in law to be taken care of.

The small town Kasauli of Himachal Pradesh nestled by the Himalayan Range, it’s description has left a very colourful and a warmth picture in my heart.

The moments in this book are so heart touching. It’s not a breezy romance, but it's deeper. The protagonist, a young man of twenty-four but he is more matured and emotionally very controlled man. Similar-maturity and control reflecting in the young woman whose husband is missing in Action in war.

There were those soft moments where the building of a relationship progresses, slowly. The innocent moments between Rishu and Ashi and Rishu and Zayd are very sweet.

Zayd who had to mature at a very young age in not so favourable conditions makes you feel sad for his lost youth. His struggle to control his anger... The very anger which had cost him, his friend and four years of his life. 

Ashima an army brat who found her love in an army man against her parents wish is struggling financially and mentally at the loss of her husband who is missing in action in the war.  She is hoping to find him every time she manages to arrange money for a search around the place where the plane was last seen. That being the area around the border of India and Pakistan doesn’t help. 

One who is running from the past and the other is trying to solve the mystery of her past. Their mutual affinity and attraction soon taking them towards love. A town which holds Ashima on a high pedestal because she is the wife of their own Air Force officer who is missing in action. A father whose political career rides on his son’s reformation.  A mother who still believes her son would return as he is just temporarily lost. A mother who wishes her daughter would start afresh in the city. Amidst all this the small a fluttering heart unaware of all the turmoil’s around him.  

The characters, Ashima, Zayd, Rishabh, Kasauli( yes the town is a character in itself in this story) and last but not the least Jugnu, will leave a mark in your heart.

Grab the book from Goodreads, Amazon USA, Amazon India, Amazon Canada, Amazon UK and Amazon Australia.

Burb:

What do you do when your love is trapped in the past?

Zayd Abbas Rizvi, out on parole, wants to escape the suspicious eyes of the world and concentrate on rebuilding his future. He zeroes in on Kasauli, a small, quaint hill town. 

Contrary to his expectations though, he is unable to find peace in the skirmish around the guest house, the antics of a three-year-old, and the deep, sad eyes of his mother. As he battles the demons of his past, falling in love was not in Zayd’s plan…

Ashima's life is a long, tiresome struggle, until a tall, tattoo flaunting stranger registers in her guest house. Hoping against hope for a ray of sunshine in her life, unbridled attraction to a stranger is not what Ashima had bargained for…

Will Zayd and Ashima be able to forego their past and embrace their present, even when they know that if things went wrong, all they'll be left with is a broken heart and painful memories?