The Fragile Thread of Hope by Pankaj Giri

Publication Date: October 29th 2017

Read Date: April 23rd 2018

Genre: Romance / Contemporary

Pages: 408

Stars: 4/5

A gripping emotional inspirational fiction about love, loss, and finding hope in the darkest of times. 

In the autumn of 2012, destiny wreaks havoc on two unsuspecting people—Soham and Fiona.

Although his devastating past involving his brother still haunted him, Soham had established a promising career for himself in Bangalore.

After a difficult childhood, Fiona’s fortunes had finally taken a turn for the better. She had married her beloved, and her life was as perfect as she had ever imagined it to be.

But when tragedy strikes them yet again, their fundamentally fragile lives threaten to fall apart.

Can Fiona and Soham overcome their grief?

Will the overwhelming pain destroy their lives?

Seasoned with the flavours of exotic Nepalese traditions and set in the picturesque Indian hill station, Gangtok, The Fragile Thread of Hope explores the themes of spirituality, faith, alcoholism, love, and guilt while navigating the complex maze of family relationships.

Inspirational and heart-wrenchingly intimate, it urges you to wonder—does hope stand a chance in this travesty called life?

If you love contemporary literary fiction novels by Khaled Hosseini and Jhumpa Lahiri, contemporary christian fiction novels by Melissa Storm, and tragic romance novels by Jojo Moyes and Nicholas Sparks, then make time for Pankaj Giri’s new heartbreaking inspirational novel The Fragile Thread of Hope.

The Fragile Thread of Hope is a bittersweet Love story and it won’t be wrong if I say it was a Life story of two lead characters Fiona and Soham who travel their life path through darkness and tragedy towards the light holding on the fragile thread of hope. Book is about loss, grief, love, family, importance and true meaning of life, and bits of spirituality.

All characters were written with so much emotion keeping in mind all the minute details. They were so realistic and their actions too felt real.

Soham– was shy, had a problem in expressing his thoughts and was not much good in conversations since his childhood. His love for his elder brother and parents was described so nicely. Those who is youngest child in family can easily relate to his thoughts and feeling. I felt for him more than Fiona as one after other bad things happening with him and he was damn lonely while Fiona had her mother to hold on.

Fiona– was conservative and very close. She wrapped herself in hard shell after her abusive alcoholic father’s death. She was judging all men based on her dark childhood experience until Joseph finds a way to penetrate that shell. When she married Joseph I saw a different cheerful Fiona. I liked that happy picture of her. And then again darkness returns and so her closed nature as well. Her feelings for Joseph and her pain and suffering was so emotional and heart touching. I could see why it was so hard for her to move on and live life but I couldn’t feel much while reading her life till the guilt and regret she expressed for her mother.

Sharon– Fiona’s mother, was kind of third main character. She was most lovable and inspiring character of the book. She suffered lot in past and even after marriage. The way she handled her own grief without any support, brought up Fiona on her own and also the way she handled Fiona in her loss and pain was mind-blowing.

Book was narrated beautifully in third person voice through the perspective of Fiona, Soham and Sharon, alternatively. It started with the biggest tragedy in their life and then author take us into the past life of all three characters, their childhood, how they turned out because of the events they encountered in their past, college and professional life, finding love and then back to tragedy and present life, their life after those events to how they will find the hope and happiness again in their life. Transition through all the phases of their life was smooth and mesmerizing. I felt like I was watching the emotional TV soap.

Characters’ life, their hometown, religion and rituals everything was written in beautiful vivid way that I could easily picture. Author woven life and love story with many different topics including alcoholism, death of family members and loved ones, abusive family, religious beliefs, depression and suicidal thoughts, and spirituality with insightful inspirational words that might help those who have experienced loss and can give hope to move on and live life. The blog in the book ‘Himalayan soul’ was just awesome.

Most beautiful thing was the way author represented these two different characters with different perspective, coming from different religion and family background, living totally different life that I couldn’t even imagine their path will intersect at some point and the way their grief and pain brought them together and connected their fragile life with stronger bond of hope and love. Another remarkable point was how both main characters had unintentionally taken their parents for granted, cared for them less and not even realizing how much dependent they were on them until something bad happens to them. Their realization, guilt, and regret was so heartfelt and relatable.

In India, people don’t go to therapist if they are suffering from grief, they find their own way to come out of grief and depression, but sadly some can’t and commit suicide. The close look of Soham’s loneliness and Fiona’s depth of pain created a fear in me that they will do something silly but I loved the way both characters kept living, found a way to conquer their depression and more importantly found each other.

Story was quite predictable, I knew at certain point what was going to happen but I was more curious to see how that will happen. End was nice and I loved to see the peace and happiness in these two tragic characters’ life.

Slow. Story was interesting and was unique but it was almost 400 pages long and it progressed slowly, some events were dragged too much in showing close picture of emotional status of characters. I didn’t like those sentences with too much details on minor thing. It felt unnecessary at many places. Book was emotional roller coaster but it touched me superficially not as deeply as I expected.

Overall, The Fragile Thread of Hope was unique,  interesting, inspiring, emotional roller-coaster that all contemporary lovers would love to read.

Author: Pankaj Giri

To know more about author click Here.

Buy Link: Amazon.com / Amazon.in

*** Note: I received e-copy of book from the author, in exchange for an honest review. Many thanks to author for giving me a chance to read this book. ***

What do you think about the book and my review? Have you read this book already? Have you read something similar to this before? Share your thoughts in comment-box below.