About the Book:
Title: Frankly Spooking
Author: Sriramana Muliya
Publisher: Harper Collins India.
Year of Release: 2013
No. of Pages: 216
About Author:
Sriramana Muliya did his masters in Journalism and Communication from the University of Mysore in 1997. Since then, he has worked as a copy writer, a creative content developer for websites, and a technical writer. Currently he works as a technical editor at Cisco Systems.
Sriramana Muliya has been blogging for the last ten years at Malignant Humor in my Head. Though he started out writing about snippets of his life, in the last few years he has been writing mostly fiction. He is also an avid movie buff, and likes to watch quality cinema.
He lives in Bangalore with his wife and daughter.
About the Book:
A chilling collection of spooky tales
This is an unsettling collection of tales that will draw out the fears which lie hidden in the deepest, darkest recesses of your mind. Where the dead meet you in the corridors of a swanky office, a busy shopping mall, a quiet classroom. They may even come knocking on your front door.
Unexpected yet familiar, Frankly Spooking is perfect for those nights when the rains lash against your windowpane and the lights go off.
My views: 
The first thing I assumed when I received the kindle version of the book from the author for review was that it is a Novel. As the name suggests Frankly Spooking is anything but Romantic Novel and as most of my bloggers already know I am a Romantic person and even though I have attempted writing in different genres, I do my best in Romance. Also, I like to read more of Romantic novels than any other genre. So, I was not sure whether I really wanted to read this one. But once I started reading, I was glad I decided to read it. I read the first short story as first chapter of the Novel and after reading the next story I realized it is a collection of short “spooking” stories!
To begin with – the cover design is good. It does remind one of “The Ring” (ref. fly), the cover is simple and enough for loud and clear message for the reader to know what the book is about.
Apart from a few selected stories, most of the stories had a predictable end, or maybe it is just me. But I do believe that being good at writing a story is not about the story being unpredictable, it is about the way you narrate the predictable story and still keep the reader interested. I must admit that even though not all were able to keep me interested, there were quite a few which did. A selected few surprised me altogether!
The reader should read the stories with an open mind without expecting too much from them and just follow the place where the words take them..
The simplicity of the language makes it easy to read and visualize.
The use of Hindi words in the book does give an Indian and friendly touch to it but personally, I did not like it and was disappointed with the use of the same.
The use of Hindi words in a few short stories ruin the quality of the story.
Frankly speaking, a few stories seemed to end abruptly and the climax tweaked just to label it as spooky. Some of the stories could have been written in much better way, obviously it does not mean they are not good… all I am saying is that they could have been better. This book is mostly for the mass, rather than for the class.
Short stories titled Director's cut, Mannequins on the move, The Last stop, Thus far, Stuck in the middle are few of my favorites. Team player made me say "Eww" and Sleeping over it, I remembered for quite some time even after I closed my kindle and went to bed. For a minute I thought I should have not read this story at night.
To begin with – the cover design is good. It does remind one of “The Ring” (ref. fly), the cover is simple and enough for loud and clear message for the reader to know what the book is about.
Apart from a few selected stories, most of the stories had a predictable end, or maybe it is just me. But I do believe that being good at writing a story is not about the story being unpredictable, it is about the way you narrate the predictable story and still keep the reader interested. I must admit that even though not all were able to keep me interested, there were quite a few which did. A selected few surprised me altogether!
The reader should read the stories with an open mind without expecting too much from them and just follow the place where the words take them..
The simplicity of the language makes it easy to read and visualize.
The use of Hindi words in the book does give an Indian and friendly touch to it but personally, I did not like it and was disappointed with the use of the same.
The use of Hindi words in a few short stories ruin the quality of the story.
Frankly speaking, a few stories seemed to end abruptly and the climax tweaked just to label it as spooky. Some of the stories could have been written in much better way, obviously it does not mean they are not good… all I am saying is that they could have been better. This book is mostly for the mass, rather than for the class.
Short stories titled Director's cut, Mannequins on the move, The Last stop, Thus far, Stuck in the middle are few of my favorites. Team player made me say "Eww" and Sleeping over it, I remembered for quite some time even after I closed my kindle and went to bed. For a minute I thought I should have not read this story at night.
Overall – Great Imagination! Worth the money spent. Frankly spooking had perhaps not been interesting for me had it been a Novel rather than short stories
