Book: Wedding on the Maharaja Express
Author: Prakhar Vishwani
Publisher: Penguin India
I was provided a media copy of the book in
exchange for an honest review.
What if you could get married on the most
luxurious train in India?
Vir has spent his life quietly loving Vani.
Now, against all odds, he’s about to marry her on the opulent Maharaja
Express―a moving palace for their week-long nuptials as they travel across
India. But Vani doesn’t love him yet, so Vir makes a deal: if he can win her
heart before the train reaches its final stop, the wedding goes ahead. If not,
he walks away. As the Maharaja Express keeps moving, the dreamy destination
wedding soon becomes a runaway train for family drama. Exes show up uninvited.
Blackmail, ego clashes over regressive traditions and betrayals disrupt the
celebrations. Then, after one explosive night, a guest is found dead. With the
train derailed and no one allowed to leave, every passenger becomes a suspect.
On the Maharaja Express, love is a gamble, and someone is willing to kill to
win.
The premise of “Wedding on the Maharaja Express” is interesting. You put together 2 families in close quarters; sparks are sure to fly. Prakhar sets the tone of the story quite nicely and pulls you into the chaos almost immediately. The writing is gripping and fast paced, and at no point do you feel that the plot is dropping or lagging. The idea of a fairy tale wedding turning into a crime scene is well executed. What I loved about the book was the romance between Vani and Vir. Another aspect that is nicely captured are the family dynamics which are a part of any Indian family, and how that becomes a part of the entire storyline. What did not work for me in the book was the second half of the book, specially where the entire crime angle unfolds. The writing is quite hurried and as a reader you are confused as to what really happened. Prakhar unravels too many threads at once and you are left scratching your head trying to understand the reasons behind the murder and the entire investigative process, or rather the lack of it. Coming to the characters, while we see some bit of background on Vir and Vani, there is not a lot of background on the other characters. There are fleeting references to the life of a few characters, but that does not do justice to information required for a whodunnit.
Overall, I think the plot had good promise to
be a wonderful story with a balance of a well written romance and a whodunnit,
something I have been wanting to read for a long time. The book scores a 3.81/5
for me.
Grab your copy of the book from a bookstore near you or on Amazon India.
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