A BBC-featured Indian novelist with a flair for writing stories that draw in her readers instantly, Preeti Shenoy is one of the highest selling authors in the country. Credited with a whopping 12 bestsellers, she definitely has cracked the formula for what connects with readers. Speaking to us ahead of Prime Day, Preeti gets candid on love, loneliness and lots more.
As the launch date for her forthcoming young adult novel ‘When Love Came Calling’ approaches, Preeti is unfazed by it all. A sense of surety in her writing keeps her from spiraling into a nervous frenzy, which is so often the case for authors close to their launch date. Preeti instead speaks of her love for reading. She says that reading “improves intelligence, increases empathy, helps you fight Alzheimer’s, makes you more successful, among many other benefits”.
We find ourselves agreeing with her when she talks about how “reading changes you and transforms your life”. Preeti points out how watching a movie or a web series is a passive form of content consumption, whereas when we read, our brain actively imagines the story and suddenly we are as much a part of the story as the characters themselves. In her short story ‘Somebody That I Used to Love, she weaves a world in which she dissects complex issues of loneliness, isolation and the many ways of finding love.
“Loneliness and isolation can hit you at any age, at any time. We form connections in ways we never thought possible and with people we never would have anticipated.”.
Relationships have been a consistent theme in most of her works, and we anticipate a fresh take on them each time she publishes a new story. The inspiration behind her forthcoming story stems from the mysterious workings of love, and how dynamic the process of falling for someone can be.
We are delighted to have Preeti’s short story Somebody That I Used to Know as part of Prime Reading program.
