Unlikely Stories
::: A novel anthology of horror & comedy stories by V. Subhash :::
Boy meet girl. Both fall in love. Boy proposes marriage. Girl postpones decision for one month. Girl say she leave next day. Until then, boy try impress girl by telling stories — funny stories… scary stories… and all kinds in between. No worries everything end well.
The stories were tough to come by. Having given up on fiction years ago, he had to marshall some old personal anecdotes, wild tales told by others, and even some vividly detailed nightmares for his first novel. Like a male Scheherazade, he wove these yarns together with humour. And, they just about managed to help him bag his babe. How good were the tales? What were they about? For all questions like that, you will have to read the book.
Well, there is an exorcism, a haunted lift, a werewolf… all of them supernatural paranormal urban-fantasy stories.
- First published: May 2022
- Pages: 72 (55 with real content of the novel)
- Target: Ages 16 and above
- Bonus material: Six pages of puzzles from World Of Word Ladders (only in paperback)
- Ebook: You can read it free if you subscribe to the Kindle Unlimited program.
- BUYER BEWARE:
- My paperbacks are not printed in India and have to be imported by third-party sellers on Amazon's non-US sites. DO NOT buy my paperbacks at inflated prices from these sellers. Buy directly from Amazon or not buy at all.
- You can pay Indian rupees to purchase my paperbacks at reasonable rates from BookDepository.com (an Amazon subsidiary in UK, no international shipping charges) and BooksWagon.com (a New Delhi-based importer and an Amazon third-party seller).
- More info: Scroll down further.
| Format | Store | Price |
|---|---|---|
| Paperback | Amazon | $7.70 |
| Ebook | Amazon | ₹70, $3 |
Sample Pages
This low-resolution watermarked but fully functional PDF has a few sample pages from the book. You can review the PDF before your purchase.
Download
unlikely-stories-by-v-subhash-sample-review-copy.pdf
30 pages with watermarks | 1.8 MB MB
This PDF contains a few pages of word ladders that are available as bonus content in the paperback (but not in the ebook).
More info about this novel
- The anthology is based on several real-life incidents and nightmares that the author had encountered.
- The entire book is in first person.
- This means that there are no boring descriptions of the the scenery or the weather that others authors typically use to fill the pages.
- Everything happens very fast. If you miss a line, you may miss a joke, the plot or even the finale.
- The author was not comfortable using fake names because several of the characters exist in real life. There are only two names (other than the lead who is identified as Subhash) in the whole book.
- Vampira: She is the ‘babe’ who is being wooed by the narrator. She once had a vampire obsession and during that phase she acquired a lot of tattoos and some dental surgery to look like a vampire. Although she regrets it now and has got rid of the tattoos, she still retains the fangs. That is why the lead refers to her as Vampira. That’s not her name.
- Mademoiselle Zuma: She is a mind-reader and medium for communicating with departed spirits. She is a business rival of another lead who appears in some of the stories. Her name is from an episode of the vintage radio show Duffy’s Tavern.
- Even place names have been avoided. There is however one funny story set in NYC.
- Stories about vampires or werewolves as life partners are popular with teens. In this book, the author makes a lot of fun of the practical difficulties of having a vampire or a werewolf as such a partner.
- Most importantly, the book is extremely funny. Not just few jokes scattered here and there. Every every dialogue has a joke. It will be like reading the script of a sitcom.
There is no sex in the novel.The lead couple get married in the end before anything happens. There is some nudity (very minimally described) because one character is a shape-shifter. There is also some description of effective contraceptive methods that the author decided to include because these novels are typically read by young people. This discussion happens because Vampira is doubtful about the lead's marriage proposal.- The finale is an over-the-top parody of the controversy about men writing women. It involves one Stone Age Man (SAM) and one Stone Age Woman (SAW) discovering sex by accident. This is described in the most funniest and prudish manner that it might be alright to say there is no sex in the novel.
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