Maniparna’s reviews are a delight to read! Her eclectic prose and poetry would allure you! I am elated at her beautiful words that describe my poetry!
Her choice of words and excerpts, the quote that she has used to describe my book has taken me over to the moon! I am glad she has savoured the poems slowly…they can be read again and again and I too derive solace from some of them whenever I read them. “Some hues of life change from time to time, but eventually, their changing shades are etched in our hearts. Balroop has given words to those shades, those emotions of life.”…love that description Mani!
Many thanks!
“Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested”– this quote of Francis Bacon immediately came to my mind after I finished reading Balroop Singh’s latest collection of poems, “Timeless Echoes”.
I was quite busy for a couple of months and during those days, whenever I managed some “me time”, I used to read a few poems from the book. I could have read the book all in a go; the poems are neither big nor complicated, but I wanted to savour their myriad flavours, wished them to linger in my mind. That’s the way Balroop composed her poems, as Bacon had said, her book is meant to be chewed and digested. [Balroop’s poems are a pleasure to read, I already know that as I follow her blog regularly and, have reviewed her previous book Emerging From Shadows.]
Timeless Echoes is just a click away now. Click on the link to download it and hear the echoes that would reverberate around you, reminding you of lost opportunities, repressed desires, cherished moments and hope that shimmers through clouds.
Half of what we say are lies although they might be considered true, but truth with one’s self is an accepted bundle of lies except for those rare moments of self-realization. These lines right at the start of Timeless Echoes, ‘Each moment is precious, we try to cage it within our heart, where it perches in perfect rampart, embalmed by memories,’ reveal how this book is a healer, promising to lay bare the ills of the soul as it soothes, cleanses, and nurtures; instilling in us a will to learn and live without fear, and a will to not hurt others: ‘Why can’t our hearts feel the hurt we hurl at others?’
Balroop’s new book is a steadfast repudiation of those ills that we painfully hide under the covers of our flesh to present the polished exterior as truth. This magnetic collection of poems highlights our precious human lives with all their varied emotions and imposing relations: the lives often blinded by the strictures of the self-made duplicity, an excessively common phenomenon. ‘Listen to your heart, my friend. It knows you well,’ she writes.
I treasure these ‘forgetting fragile facets of love, facade of fading memories, echoes of dwindling love, is all I have now, yet love echoes refuse to subside’ believing that love echoes are soul-launched signals, ready to hug our pretenses to forge a divine assimilation because the struggle has always been with the self that we excommunicate to build up a wall, which obscures the travails plaguing the core. And finding a path to the core is the cure since there’s no villainy in the soul.
As Balroop proclaims ‘love is such a strange emotion, it gives less, it claims more…the facade of love is so delusive,’ I concur how our infirmities require urgent banishment, more pressing now than ever. And once I’ve made peace with the self, ‘the dark corridors are like meadows, they glow with my presence.’ Yes, without an iota of my own falsehoods plaguing me. –Mahesh Nair
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My blogger cum author friend Jacqui Murray, who rides on the wings of reading and writing has landed here today to share her latest book launch ‘Born in a Treacherous Time.’
I am amazed at the readability factor of her book, as I have read it faster than I had anticipated and would like to share my review before we begin a chat with her.
‘Born in a Treacherous Time’ by Jacqui Murray explores that period of time, (1.8 million years ago) which was most challenging for mankind, when survival and finding food were the major issues, the only weapons to kill were stones or sticks and predators could attack any moment. I haven’t read any other book in this genre and have never given a serious thought to how humans lived in pre-historic times. It is interesting to note that nature ruled human beings! A feeling of revulsion hit me when I was reading the details of eating raw meat, with blood dripping from their mouths.
Only a few books have such a magnetic power! This book pulled me more because the protagonist is a woman – Lucy who had a ‘capacious’ brain, could invent tools, understand the herbs and plants that heal and is strong enough to save Baad, one of her male companions from the attack of an eagle. An element of mystery makes this fictional account of early man quite fascinating.
Murray’s superb handling of characterization, with the basic instincts of bonding, care for each other, urge for learning and raising children stands out to lend authenticity to the plot. However it is the resilience of human spirit and hope that shimmers through out the book.
Book Blurb:Lucy and her band of early humans struggle to survive in the harsh reality of a world where nature rules, survival is a daily challenge, and a violent band threatens to destroy everything Lucy thinks she understands. If you like Man vs. Wild, you’ll love this book. If you ever wondered how earliest man survived but couldn’t get through the academic discussions, this book is for you. It will bring that world to life in a way never seen before.
I am delighted to have you here Jacqui. Please meet my curious muse who has some questions for you.
How did you think of such a different theme for your latest book?
At the root of Born in a Treacherous Time is Clan of the Cave Bear. Beyond that, the question of how man survived in primeval times filled with Sabertooth Cats and Mammoth was an idea that simply wouldn’t let go of me! I tried to push it away over and over and Lucy (the main character) just wasn’t having any of that. So I finally capitulated and agreed to write her story!
Why have you given so much energy and intelligence to Lucy and not Raza?
I suppose because I identified with the female protagonist. I wanted people to understand her, why she did the things she did, her power to go beyond norms, her creative thinking when solving problems. I am planning a sequel to this book which will focus more on the males though still not Raza (probably).
How much of the story is imaginative?
I spent considerable time researching all the ‘paleo’ topics for this book–paleoclimate, paleogeology, paleoanthropology, that sort. I came to realize that what we know about this time so long ago is limited and fragile, often based on a handful of artifacts. The best any scientist can do is extrapolate based on this evidence. So that’s what I did. I’ve read other stories of ancient man that gave their characters the power to read thoughts and more. I didn’t award any characteristics (such as that) without evidence it could be true.
Do you think emotions guided people of treacherous times?
Yes though I’m unclear how much. Science is also unclear how much. As a result, I include emotion as one of those traits that make us uniquely human and allow my people to act based on emotion. Truthfully, it would be pretty boring without the pizazz of emotion in scenes, wouldn’t it?
You are right Jacqui. Jealousy and kindness seem to be as old as Kelda and Lucy. Have you picked these traits from modern times?
Man’s instinct to survive is hard-wired and likely uses tools like jealousy and kindness. But emotions that rely on more modern actions–like specialization of jobs or detailed planning–I avoid. I won’t in the next book though!
You are a prolific writer, reader, blogger and a teacher too besides being a home-maker. Tell us the secret of managing so many things together.
I keep a TODO list which I constantly check. I also don’t allot endless time to any one project. I have deadlines and meet them. Without that, I would constantly tweak everything!
Thank you for honoring us with your visit Jacqui. We wish you and your book a roaring success.
Book information:
Title : Born in a Treacherous Time Series: Book 1 in the Man vs. Natureseries Genre: Prehistoric fiction Cover by: Damonza Available at:Kindle
About the author:
Jacqui Murray is the author of the popular Building a Midshipman, the story of her daughter’s journey from high school to United States Naval Academy, the Rowe-Delamagentethrillers, and theMan vs. Wild series. She is also the author of over a hundred books on integrating technology into education, adjunct professor of technology in education, webmaster for four blogs, an Amazon Vine Voice, a columnist for TeachHUB, monthly contributor to Today’s Author, and a freelance journalist on tech ed topics. You can find her books at her publisher’s website, Structured Learning.
When you have such accomplished friends as Maniparna who respond with a brilliant review of a book…you can just be as spellbound as I am right now. I am enthralled by the richness of her language, the choice of her words, the profound understanding of poetry and her in-depth analysis of my poems. Gratitude seems to be a meaningless word to thank her for her serious endeavor to interpret and bring out the subtle meaning of my poems.
I am blessed with such a blogger friend (an outstanding poet) whom I met online when I was struggling to find a foothold to survive in the blogosphere. She has kept her promise of reviewing my latest book ‘Emerging From Shadows.’
Balroop is one of those first few bloggers I got acquainted with since the beginning of my blogging journey. I’ve been reading her blog Emotional Shadows for quite a long time and, the depth and profoundness of her words never have failed to amaze me. So, when she offered me an e-copy of her newest publication, Emerging From Shadows, (her fifth book) a collection of poems, it was quite a pleasure.
Forty poems, composed and curated by the author herself, adorn the book. All the poems, though not related to each other, seems harmonious to me as I finished reading. As if, they are pearls of the same string and, together they exude a feeling that resonates with your mind in more than one way.
Balroop’s poems liberate the mind of the reader from darkness to light. Life, for us, is not a bed of roses. It is a roller…
