Faith and the Beloved-Kochery C Shibu

Book: Faith and the Beloved

Author: Kochery C Shibu

Publisher: Amazon Kindle

What do you think can drive a person to do extreme things-Faith, Love or Money?

Faith and the Beloved by Kochery C Shibu is the story of the Cherokil Family and how Faith, Love and Money drive their destiny in Life. Naithy Cherokil is a career-oriented woman, who runs an Ad agency. She falls in love with her colleague, but after his untimely demise, marries a model Tony D’Souza, who, unknown to her, is a sleeper cell terrorist and when he gets activated, things turn topsy turvy for her. Prem Rollands is an expert practitioner of Kalari. A student of St. Stephens, his life takes a turn when his brother gets killed while running from the police. Alice Cherokil is the eighteen-year-old daughter of Naithy and is an expert in computers and mystery games. Alice plays the ultimate mystery game of her life as the web of secrets surrounding two precious diamonds and her stepfather threaten to destroy her family. Alice overcomes moral dilemma to kill her stepfather and she is on the run. Alice must outwit the underworld and stay ahead of all to save her mother’s life or the guilt of her failure will haunt her forever. As the lives of Naithy, Prem and Alice cross each other they must retain their faith and protect their beloved ones even at the cost of their own lives. A saga of love, lust, betrayal, intrigue and revenge.

Faith and the Beloved is a gripping story that imbibes in itself a myriad of themes. The book has thrill, love, lust, faith and an international smuggling racket, all incorporated into this story. The book traces the life’s journey of multiple characters, and thus the book has multiple storylines that tell the story from multiple angles. This is one of the best points of the book that works in its favor. With one half of the book in history, the author takes his time to develop the concept on which the plot rests. Kochery has taken various incidents such as the rising of the LTTE, the Mumbai Terror Attacks etc. and woven it into the story. This has added a completely new dimension to the story, and it helps the reader grip the storyline. The climax, however, was predictable and could have been better, but that in no away, takes away the fun that I had reading the book. One thing that could have been improved is the editing of the book as there are grammatical mistakes as well as wrong spellings that could have been corrected with one round of editing.

On the characters front, the author has done a splendid job. With each chapter being dedicated to a character, we often see the same scene from different points of view which is a great way of building up the plot. He has taken care to ensure that the back story of each of the character is unbreakable and believable. Describing the way in which each of the character is dressed, he has taken a step ahead and it helps the reader visualize the scene in great detail. I loved the way in which the character arc of Tony D’Souza was sketched and his journey from rags to riches. The character of Alice was impressive as well.

Overall, the book scores a 4.13/5 for me.

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