It was the 19th of March 2022, a Saturday. My Instagram handle notified me that someone has posted a story with my novel Love Swipe Blackmail in their hand, adding the caption, ‘Happy Saturday @AuthorNitishBhushan’. It is usually the author’s place to take their readers on a journey of thrill. Little did I know that day, that this reader had decided to switch sides with this author. Read on!!
Before thanking my reader, I saw their profile and figured out that she was a young reader from Nepal. My joy knew no bounds. Here I was worrying about how to make Love Swipe Blackmail count amongst the best Indian suspense thriller novels, and Love Swipe Blackmail was winning the love of readers from Nepal.
I thanked her for posting the story, and asked her that I was very curious to know how & where she got my book from? As in, did she purchase it from India, or had its distribution started in Nepal. This is where she turned things even more curious for me with her reply. She said that Ravi gave it to her when he visited Nepal on business purposes. She further added that she met Ravi through SOFU .
By now I was barely able to contain myself. Not only was she being suspenseful herself, she was talking to me in the narrative of my novel. Ravi is of course one of the lead characters of Love Swipe Blackmail, and SOFU stands for Social Fun – a dating app detailed out in my novel.
I thanked her for putting it across to me like that, and requested her to demystify her source of my novel for me. But she was not going to give up soon. And she continued the tease through my novel’s narrative. Her reply was that Vandana gave it to her. Vandana, is Ravi’s lady love! By now I was relishing this teasing conversation and wondering if this was indeed my coming as an Indian thriller author that I wanted to be. My reader was not letting down her suspense, giving a taste of the author’s work to the author! Though she told me that she purchased it from a bookshop that she was passing by in Kathmandu, she dropped another mystery bomb!
I had figured from her handle that she had a brother too, and that both of them read. So I offered that I would meet her and her brother when I visited Kathmandu, and she sprang another number on me. She said that we will make a WhatsApp group named ‘Dear Friends’. That is one of the groups that the protagonists used to communicate with each other in Love Swipe Blackmail.
I thanked her for indulging in Love Swipe Blackmail in the way she did, and making my day. Usually, readers message and share the things they liked about the story or its characters. And here was a reader, a bright young poetess no less, who indulged me with her indulgence in my novel. Will Love Swipe Blackmail make it to the list of best Indian suspense novels? I don’t have a doubt. When will it make that cut? Well my readers, you will know when before me, when someone in your circle, who has read it, suggests that you get your copy too.
Thank you, Deepa and Deepak. And thank you Deepa for sharing some of your lovely poems with me.