Top Customer Reviews
5.0 out of 5 starsA Wonderful Book with an Apt Title
By Diane Kelly on April 19, 2016Format: Kindle Edition Verified Purchase
Wonderful stories of individual experiences in love, loss, and relationships, and in finding a place in a world where the expectations of others might not match one's own. The author does a great job of putting the reader in the minds of the characters, who are complex and often conflicted individuals struggling to find the right compromises in life. Very interesting book with relatable themes.
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5.0 out of 5 starsAn interesting glimpse at cultural traditions and women's changing roles
By Robin Gregory on May 30, 2016Format: Kindle Edition Verified Purchase
This is a collection of vignettes exploring women’s current struggle to find self-identity, while juggling traditional and modern roles. Several cultures come under Professor Sharma’s playful scrutiny. In one story, a young Muslim writer stirs things up when he rents a room from an English couple with two eligible daughters. In another, the daughter of a woman who was murdered by her husband discovers the identity of her real father. A Polish photographer and his fiancée like to have sex in public. A middle class Indian clerk wants his daughter to be a successful musician while her mother pushes her to marry. The stories are intimate glimpses into the characters’ lives, exposing nuanced gender issues shared by the cultures of Europe, America, Asia and the Middle East. Charged with eroticism and humor, they are peopled with interesting, expressive characters, who often chose their relationships and actions without forethought or logic. They tread on slippery ground, experimenting with different ways to balance traditional values, ethics and morals with modern expectations. Though the stories explore themes of war, murder, deception and infidelity, I highlight the following dialogue for striking a central nerve of the collection:
“Perhaps love was something that was increasingly becoming the property of women alone. Men were always trying to prove something in this world. Where did they have the time to handle the complexities of love?”
“Are women too losing their capacity to love, as we try to prove something to this world?”
In “A Letter from a Dead Man,” a middle-aged Indian professor uses her feminine wiles to gain power. In “A Man is for Burning,” an Indian literary agent sexually harasses her man-servant.Read more ›
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5.0 out of 5 starsAn Absorbing Read
By Vivienne Diane Neal on May 7, 2016Format: Paperback
What makes Intriguing Women so captivating is that the author presents an authentic depiction of women from wide-ranging backgrounds in the UK, India, Afghanistan and New York, where cultural, ethnic, religious differences and one’s economic and political standing can clash, and where marriage seems to define a woman’s and man’s status. Yet the women in this story face a range of challenges when it comes to defining their role in a mostly patriarchal society. The multifaceted and well-developed characters are capable of making their own decisions, whether good or bad, without being influenced by society at large. Each story explores romance, lust, sex, wit, deception, manipulation, infidelity, same-sex love, domestic dispute, murder, and war. With the many twists and turns, secrets, and shocking revelations, these stories are a mirror of the world, and readers will, surely, identify with some of the characters because they could be your next-door neighbor, friend, co-worker or relative.
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5.0 out of 5 stars5.0 out of 5 starsAn exciting collection of stories
By abhimanyu pandey on March 28, 2016Format: Paperback
No doubt Lakshmi Raj Sharma is a master story teller. Intriguing Women is a must read short story collection. There is much variety in these stories, no two stories are alike. The stories contain women of several kinds but are interesting for men and women alike. I am amazed to find how different it is to Lakshmi Raj Sharma's novel, The Tailor's Needle. India is shown as it actually is and so are the other countries in this collection. I strongly recommend this book to lovers of fiction.
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5.0 out of 5 starsA Gripping Story Collection
By abhijeet pandey on March 30, 2016Format: Paperback
If you like to read a collection that takes you into the consciousness of people, both women and men, this is the book to read. I could see what it is to be contemporary after reading these stories. The pain and anguish of today's relationships are very well balanced with a subtle humour. I laughed through this collection and enjoyed every page of INTRIGUING WOMEN. Don't miss reading this book of stories.
India loves stereotypes, especially the ones that colour a society’s lenses that stare at its women. Women are ordinary, real, weird and unique. Lakshmi Raj Sharma’s new collection of short stories titled Intriguing Women depict the contemporary woman in the lap of her own life’s curiosities. For instance, in one of the stories, a daughter of a woman who was murdered by her husband discovers the identity of her real father. Her emotional turmoil is nerve-chillingly real. Then, a change of mood happens with a story on a Polish photographer and his fiancée who like to have sex in public. The story of a clerk who wants her daughter to become a musician has a very soft emotional undertone to it.
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Intriguing Women By: Lakshmi Raj Sharma Publisher: The Paris Press Price: `1,110 Pages: 260
The tone and temper of the book changes from humorous to erotic to grave as the location changes from cities in India to America to Europe, Middle East and even Afghanistan. From domestic quarrels to same-sex relationships and infedility, murder and war, relationships are looked at from a woman’s perspective; the men in the stories enable the reader to understand how that’s a subject of inquiry. in its own right. “Perhaps love was something that was increasingly becoming the property of women alone. Men were always trying to prove something in this world.
Where did they have the time to handle the complexities of love?” is how Sharma tries to instill in his reader’s mind that under the burden of expectations from her, the Indian woman too can lose the capacity to love. The language is simple, the thoughts are clear but that doesn’t stop the stories from making bold and discoveries about reality.
