Title: All Aboard!
Genre: Romance
Publisher: Penguin Random House
Synopsis: When Rhea Khanna is dumped just days before her wedding, by her boyfriend of four years, the only thing she wants to do is to get out of the city to clear her head. The opportunity presents itself immediately when her aunt, a retired school headmistress, invites her to accompany her on a Mediterranean cruise.
As Rhea struggles to cope with her grief of being dumped at the altar, she finds herself getting attracted to the seemingly unavailable Kamal Shahani—the infuriatingly attractive ex-student of her aunt and a hot shot entrepreneur. To add to the confusion, Sonia, Kamal’s very attractive ex-girlfriend boards the ship in a bid to win him back.
Will Rhea heal her broken heart, or will she end up even more shattered than she was when she got on this cruise? Read, to find out.
The Pre-order links for the book here:
About the author:
Kiran Manral worked as a journalist with The Asian Age and The Times of India before she quit full time work to be a full time mommy. One of the leading bloggers in India, her blogs were listed in Labnol’s list of India’s top blogs, and her parenting blog was ranked among the top five parenting blogs in India by Blogadda. She was also a Tehelka blogger columnist on gender issues.
She was listed among the 10 non-celebrity ‘social media stars’ on twitter by the TOI and IBN Live named her as among the 30 most interesting Indian women to follow on twitter and among the top 10 Indian moms to follow on twitterin 2013. Fashion 101.in named her as amongst the most stylish authors in India. Womensweb.in listed her as one of the 20 women authors from India to be followed on twitter.
Post the 26/11 terrorist attack in Mumbai, she founded India Helps, a volunteer network to help disaster victims post 26/11 and has worked on long term rehabilitation of 26/11 Mumbai terror attack victims and 13/7 Mumbai bomb blast victims, amongst others. She was part of core founding team behind Child Sexual Abuse Awareness Month (www.csaawarenessmonth.com) and Violence Against Women Awareness Month (www.vawawareness.wordpress.com), two very well received social media awareness initiatives.
Her debut novel, The Reluctant Detective, was published by Westland in 2012 and her second novel Once Upon A Crush, was published by Leadstart in May 2014. She has three books due for release in 2015, the first of these being All Aboard! from Penguin Random House.
She is on the planning board of the Kumaon Literary Festival, an advisor on the Board of Literature Studio, Delhi, an Author Mentor at sheroes.in and a columnist at iDiva.com. She was awarded the Women Achievers award by Young Environmentalists Group in 2013.She currently blogs at www.kiranmanral.wordpress.com and is on twitter @kiranmanral.
Author Interview
Me : The title ‘All Aboard’ makes me want to hop on a flight and chase an unknown destination. Is the book targeted to travel enthusiasts as a special category or does it has something for everyone?
Kiran: The book is targeted at anyone who is looking for a nice, relaxing, romantic read. And the travel is part of the part. In that sense, the travel isn’t specifically targeting travel enthusiasts, but yes, if it inspires anyone to get on a cruise, I’d be delighted.
Me: What inspired you to write a breakup story at a time when every bestselling author is jumping into the non-fiction category?
Kiran: I would say All Aboard is a love story, not a break up story. The break up happens before I begin telling the tale. We come into the narrative as readers when the protagonist has dealt with the horrifying first days of being jilted and is now slowly on the path to recovery. I think I just write the stories that ask to be written regardless of what the current trend is. And my next is non fiction–it is a humorous collection of parenting anecdotes from my blog, Karmickids, (which I’ve now shut down) which is being published by Hay House.
Me: Do you have a story of how you never intended to be a writer but fate made you one. If yes, we would love to know how it all happened for you.
Kiran: No actually I don’t. I think I was always meant to be a reader and fate made me a writer. I was a journalist before I stopped full time work when I had my son, I turned to blogging to keep in touch with my writing skills, from there I wrote my first book and as they say, tasted blood. So here I am, on my third published book, with two more to come this year and two more written and ready to be sent out into the world.
Me: Any tips for budding writers on how to approach the big guns of the publishing industry?
Kiran: I would say start by writing the best book you can. Edit it. Or have someone edit it well. When you have what you feel is the perfect manuscript in your hand, send off three chapters, a synopsis and a chapter wise synopsis to the publishers in the format requested on their submission guidelines, to the email id specified on their websites. If you decide to do multiple submissions, do mention that in your pitch letter. Your pitch letter should be a short note about yourself–and the book. Very short. I suggest also that you do your research. Check which publishing houses publish your kind of writing and pitch to them first.
Me: Can you share some insight about the book except what we can read on the back cover.
Kiran: All Aboard is a simple, sweet falling-in-love story. It is rather old fashioned in certain ways. I’d like to think that this is a story that would give readers a sense of that adage that when something ends, it is because something infinitely better is just around the corner, if only we have the courage to not keep reopening the door to the past.
Thank you so much Akanksha.