01 May, 2018

#SpecialFeature :: Introducing Ruchi Kokcha, #Author of Obsessed


Under "Special Feature" every month I feature a Special Author. 
During this month I put up 5 posts about the Author/Book, including Interview / Review / Excerpt / Guest Post / Author Bio / Fun Facts or whatever else we can come up with. Also on the first day of the month we will  launch the Giveaway contest along with the first post and will announce the winner on the last day of the month.
So be sure to check out my blog every 1st, 8th, 15th, 22nd and 29th of every month for something new :)


*** Special Feature - May 2018 ***

About the Author:
Ruchi Kokcha is a poet and writer based in Delhi. She recently turned into an author with HarperCollins India publishing her first book Obsessed, a romantic thriller. 
She has written various short stories on the themes of love, desires, longing, identity, and self knowledge etc. She has penned down more than two hundred poems and hopes to publish them as well someday.
Born into a family of doctors and teachers, there was an immense pressure on her to take up one of these "noble" professions. However it is the world of imagination that fascinated her since childhood. The habit of reading books was inculcated in her quite early by her father who himself is an avid reader and a books-collector.
Giving in to her mother's wish to have a stable income and be financially independent first, she did a teachers training course right after her class 12th. She got a teaching job in a government school when she was only 20. She took permission from the authority concerned to continue with her studies along with her job. Her love for literature would not let her be content with a job. She worked in an evening school so that she could attend college in the morning. She did her graduation and post graduation in English from Delhi University. Studying literature changed her as a person, in a good way. She thinks everyone should read literature, in whatever language they are comfortable with. It makes one more empathetic.
Kokcha taught creative writing in Hong Kong for an year. It is then she realized that she should start writing. She started with poems, short stories and then went on to begin writing her first book Obsessed in 2011. It has a unique subject that no other contemporary Indian author has ventured into. The story of Obsessed came to her mind during her graduation days in of her Greek literature classes. For many years the story lay dormant in her mind like a seed that waits for favourable environment. Times of personal crisis when the external world quietened, the world of her mind started whispering to her. It is when she brought Obsessed to life. It took her three years and three drafts to think that the manuscript was good enough to be sent to publishers. Another three years of wait, struggle and despair before the Romance author Ravinder Singh found her on Twitter and told her to write a book. She immediately sent him the synopsis which he later pitched to HarperCollins India and they accepted it.

Contact the Author:
Facebook * Twitter * Instagram

Fun facts:

1.Ruchi Kokcha's unique surname comes from a river in Afghanistan with the same name. Her ancestors thrived on the banks of Kokcha river before they migrated to India hundreds of years ago.

2. She started reading Shakespeare when she was 10. As a child, As you like it was her favourite play by the playwright. Now it is Hamlet.

3. During class XII she was instructed to focus only on the board exams but she used to read a lot of novels by hiding them inside the thick Pradeep's Physics book. 

4. She doesn't own a Kindle. She prefers to buy paperbacks, particularly loves the smell of books and keeps dried flowers inside them as bookmarks.

5. She has a quill tattoo, birds transforming into some of her favourite words. According to her, it represents artistic freedom. 

About the Book:
Disturbingly dark and full of shocking surprises, Obsessed traverses a path along the razor’s edge of twisted love. How far will Avik’s and Ananki’s obsessions take them? 

Investigative journalist Avik has finally found the one case that could bring him glory. Or death.
   
As the mystery behind millionaire Kalki Rajput’s murder thickens, Avik is forced to risk it all to bring out the truth that has eluded many before him.

If only he could uncover what the victim's daughter had witnessed. Of course, that would mean diving into the depths of her madness. He had thought he could resurface with the truth. Now he will count himself lucky if he makes it out alive. And sane.

Populated with characters that pose at the chasm that separates the real from the unreal, in prose that belongs to worlds not our own, Obsessed will snatch you from your comfort zone. None will ever guess the identity of the killer until the book chooses to reveal it. 


Giveaway:
Book & specially made Diary

a Rafflecopter giveaway

1 comment:

  1. Interesting theme. Murder of a rich man is always shrouded in mystery. And the deeper one delves in for truth,the deeper the mystery to unveil.
    Hope to look it up for the Kindle version.

    ReplyDelete