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A review by booksanddregs
In the Company of Strangers by Awais Khan
4.0
Mona, one of the elites lives in the posh areas of Lahore, Pakistan with her husband Bilal. The two married for twenty years still struggle to find solace in each other. Mona’s dominant and surprisingly misogynist mother-in-law detests her, leaving Mona no one but herself for company. She has everything a woman can long for, caring friends, a lavish home, trail of servants and a high social status. But, a broken marriage haunts her. She yearns for her husband’s love, his care, his affection. Exasperated of the married life where she’s insulted, belittled, physically and sexually abused by her husband she wants out. Freedom seems close by when she ends up locking eyes with a young attractive model at a fashion show.
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Ali, emotionally wounded in his late-twenties, emerges as the new hot gossip as he returns to a profession he turned his back on long ago; modeling. With his charismatic personality he attracts the attention of a broken woman years older than him and finds himself desperately longing for her. After more than a few unexpected encounters he lets his guard down and pursues her. Blinded by treacherous love all he sees is the way she makes him feel when she’s around him.
•
Breaking the shackles of religion and society the two find themselves falling for each other igniting a wave of heated romance, but they’ve to keep their love a perilous secret. But things take an impromptu path when Ali accidentally gets involved with a terrorist group led by Mir Rabiullah who puts up a facade of being a pious God fearing man. When Ali’s brother Hussain had disastrously lost a leg in a bomb blast Mir had offered to pay for his prosthetic leg and thus he remains in Mir’s debt. Naive Ali, too late to judge Mir’s intentions finds himself grounded amidst bombs and guns. But when he’s given a choice to choose between his family and Mona he does what none expected him to do.
•
At first the book was a little hard to get into for me, but as it proceeded it grew on my and I found myself enjoying it, I loved all the characters, how detailed and precise they were. Khan did a great job of meeting all the strewn ends and painting a beautiful picture of each character. The writing was so easy to comprehend, it was a perfect balance of plot progression and descriptive analysis. For a debut it was grasping and totally captivating!!
•
Ali, emotionally wounded in his late-twenties, emerges as the new hot gossip as he returns to a profession he turned his back on long ago; modeling. With his charismatic personality he attracts the attention of a broken woman years older than him and finds himself desperately longing for her. After more than a few unexpected encounters he lets his guard down and pursues her. Blinded by treacherous love all he sees is the way she makes him feel when she’s around him.
•
Breaking the shackles of religion and society the two find themselves falling for each other igniting a wave of heated romance, but they’ve to keep their love a perilous secret. But things take an impromptu path when Ali accidentally gets involved with a terrorist group led by Mir Rabiullah who puts up a facade of being a pious God fearing man. When Ali’s brother Hussain had disastrously lost a leg in a bomb blast Mir had offered to pay for his prosthetic leg and thus he remains in Mir’s debt. Naive Ali, too late to judge Mir’s intentions finds himself grounded amidst bombs and guns. But when he’s given a choice to choose between his family and Mona he does what none expected him to do.
•
At first the book was a little hard to get into for me, but as it proceeded it grew on my and I found myself enjoying it, I loved all the characters, how detailed and precise they were. Khan did a great job of meeting all the strewn ends and painting a beautiful picture of each character. The writing was so easy to comprehend, it was a perfect balance of plot progression and descriptive analysis. For a debut it was grasping and totally captivating!!