Books for Screen - The October List
If any of these titles interest you for Screen Rights, you can reach out to us for more details by clicking here or email us at story@thestoryink.com
Hurda
Genre: Crime Thriller | Murder Mystery | Drama
Blurb: Valentine's Day 2013
Murwani, a village in Maharashtra
Three sisters-Anisha, Sanchita and Priyanka-disappear from school that afternoon. No one knows where they went or why, but everyone remembers they were up to no good. Six years later, a journalist from Mumbai returns to the scene of the crime and tries to piece together what exactly happened that fateful day.
Hurda is that story told through the voices of the many whose lives intersected with those of the three sisters. Based on a real-life incident, this novel takes a surgical knife to contemporary India and sets up for display its pervasive and deep misogyny. Savagely hilarious and deeply disturbing, a whodunit as well as an examination of what the lives of women are worth, Hurda marks the arrival of a bold new voice from South Asia.
Arambha: The Birth of Vijayanagara
Genre: Historical | Drama
Blurb: When Hakka and Bukka are taken prisoner by Muhammad-bin-Tughlaq in the battle at the Fort of Hosadurg in 1327, they begin to forge a relationship with their captor. Over time, Tughlaq installs Hakka as the Governor of Kampili, the kingdom where the brothers had initially been captured by the Sultan's army.
Slowly, Hakka and Bukka break free of the Sultanate and begin to establish their influence in the South. Over forty years, they lay the foundation for the Vijayanagara Empire - an empire that would last for more than two and a half centuries.
This is a story of skill and rapid conquest, as two brothers carve out an empire in the subcontinent. Most of all, it is a story of exceptional people who played a role in building this new entity - the Vijayanagara Empire.
Equations
Genre: Period | Drama
Blurb: Like family, but not quite. In New Delhi in the 1980s, Aahan Sikand and Rajesh Kumar are childhood playmates. They have been brought up under the care of the same woman, living in the same house, but with starkly different realities - Aahan is the only son and heir of the fabulously wealthy Sikand family, and Rajesh is the son of Mr Sikand's driver. As Aahan and Rajesh grow up, the friendship they shared as children reaches an uncomfortable end, as both become aware of their places in the world. While Aahan is expected to keep what he has inherited intact for the next generation, Rajesh, in the eyes of the world, can, at best, hope for a life better than his father's, free of domestic servitude.
But, he has much larger plans for himself. Equations is a story of aspiration and social change, of individual ambition and family bonds. It announces the arrival of a striking new author who delves into the secrets of New Delhi politics and business.
My poems are not for your ad campaigns
Genre: Coming Of Age | Drama
Blurb: In a recently liberated economy characterized by speed, the commodification of women's bodies and consumerist culture, Bhashwati is an increasingly disillusioned misfit who has, ironically, just started working in an advertising firm. But her life changes one day when she finds out about the mysterious Mohua Roy, a former copywriter with the company, whose desk Bhashwati now uses. The company employees remain tight-lipped about Mohua, who had left abruptly for reasons unknown. On finding a poem written by Mohua, Bhashwati decides to search for her. This takes Bhashwati to Calcutta's lanes, where she meets people who sacrificed immensely for the same values that she finds eroded in a developing India.
Who is Mohua Roy? Why is there a net of silence around her very existence? Will Bhashwati find Mohua? Will she leave her job, just like Mohua?
The Divining Thread
Genre: Coming Of Age | Fantastical | Drama
Blurb: Zarene is about to marry the prince of Shandrabad. A young woman of high standing and impeccable upbringing, she can only be faulted for one thing: her fixation on dressmaking.
Her world is turned upside down when she encounters a ghagra that divines the future. Haunted by the secrets it shares with her in her waking hours and her dreams, she makes it her sole purpose in life to find its maker and becomes their apprentice. Knowledge of the dressmaker's whereabouts is not easy to come by. The ghagra offers up clues pointing to a woman, a creature descended from paradise known to mortal men as the howr. An old wives' tale. A myth.
Zarene pieces together the puzzle, befriending a young drifter with a terrible secret along the way, travelling to distant lands and braving the unknown. The price for her heart's desire is steep, the fate awaiting her more than she ever bargained for.
Hari Majestic Series
Genre: Comedy | Coming of Age | Murder Mystery
Blurb: Mr Majestic! The Tout of Bengaluru is a crazy, rip-roaring detective thriller about an ex-scamster with a golden heart. With a trail of stiffs and thugs behind him, Hari Majestic traverses the megacity of Bengaluru trying to right many wrongs. A foreign tourist, a girl originally adopted from India, has come back to pursue a career in cinema – only to vanish off the face of the earth.
Mr Majestic, a tout and petty conman by profession, is asked to track her down and must use all his scamster skills and street smartness to pull it off. Little does he know the lethal dangers he will have to face – armed torpedoes, monsoon floods, crazy riots and his own existential fears of possibly being reborn as a dog.
Ritual
Genre: Crime Thriller | Murder Mystery
Blurb: A Kolkata noir. When the body was found, the heart was missing. Someone had cut it out. Calcutta is in political turmoil and it is turning violent. It is also home to Vasant Sena, a religious cult with a charismatic leader and militant devotees, engaged in drug-fuelled sex rituals. As bodies of girls, their hearts cut off their chests, start appearing all over Calcutta, ACP Ashutosh and his deputy Pradeep are assigned the case.
Soon, they find themselves spiralling into a mesh of double faces and blind alleys, even as the machinery of the state and the police turn against them. Can they catch the killer before the killer catches them?
Once Upon A Spy
Genre: Spy Thriller | Action
Blurb: Vishwamitra Saini — a spy, a consummate man and an avid lover — sees the world in black and white. He has his own set of rules that he abides by. But when he falls in love during a mission, a deed which ultimately blows his cover, his superiors decide to put him on the shelf. It is then that he decides he has had enough. He crosses over to Pakistan and defects to the other side, putting all of India’s secrets in jeopardy. At least that is the story that the world knows about him. But has he really defected? Or has he gone rogue? What is the truth? As the hunt for Saini begins, a secret is revealed from the veil about a mysterious informant from the other side, codenamed The Rook, whose agenda is yet obscure.
A threat, unknown and unseen, looms upon the country and the people, as Saini navigates his way through a web, that is determined to ensure his downfall. Once Upon A Spy — is a devasting portrayal of men who have played different roles for so long that they no longer know who they are.
Tricksters
Genre: Coming Of Age | Comedy | Drama
Blurb: It lurks in the shadows. It lives in your worst nightmares. It feeds on your deepest fears. It's the Master Trickster, and it's coming to get you. When she loses her parents in an accident, Diya Mathur's world collapses around her. As far as she knows, she's alone in the world now - till a mysterious letter arrives from India. Suddenly, Diya has a chance to be part of a family again. But moving from Boston to India also brings Diya closer to the place where the horror of the Chakwa - the Master Trickster - first started. As bodies and tragedies pile up around her, Diya's belief in the urban myth of the Chakwa increases.
Will the monster that ruined her parents' life now destroy Diya's happiness? Or will she manage to defeat him at his own game? With the help of her newly discovered friends and family, Diya must fight not just the monster from her nightmares, but also make sense of a fast-unravelling web of lies that makes up her life.
The Heist Artist
Genre: Heist | Action
Blurb: Vagh Pratap Singh aka the Captain is a conman extraordinaire. From transporting illegal merchandise and stealing cars to breaking safes, he's done it all. But now, in his fortieth year, he's ready to retire. So when Udham Kumar, a crooked politician from Uttar Pradesh, commissions the Captain to track down and steal Poppy Flowers, a Vincent van Gogh's painting that has been smuggled into India after it went missing in a museum in Egypt in 2010, the Captain knows that he's found his last, and biggest case. But the painting is now in possession of a dangerous gangster, and the Captain is being followed by Udham Kumar's ruthless associates, greedy for both money and power. As the odds against him begin to stack up, the Captain realizes that his last heist might not be as easy as he'd imagined.
The Shark and The Dolphins
Genre: Entrepreneurial | Coming of Age |Legal Drama
Blurb: "Towering egos, a fierce legal battle, epic friendships, and amidst it all, the dream to build the world’s greatest electric car. Bharat and Aman leave their successful management careers to chase their dream of building an electric car. Joined by maverick engineer Vinay Aggarwal, they embark on an epic journey. They sacrifice comfort for passion, from corner offices to an underground garage, only to arrive in Munich. But every dream comes with a price. They find themselves up against a predatory investor and a conniving lawyer who will stop at nothing to bring them down. Their last line of defense— Advocate Nivedita Das. Will the boys get past their hurdles? Or will Nivedita’s self-doubt cost them their life’s ambition?"
Delhi: City of the Blood Gates
Genre: Period | Drama
Blurb: Black smoke billowing from the city's marble minarets and temple domes.
Shrieks of human suffering muffled under the dragon-flames of heavy cannon.
This is the seventh burning of Delhi. And none shall the inferno spare.
As a raging sea of Company legions sweeps across the Mughal capital, wrath of the dreaded God, Nikhaal-bhagvaan, descends inescapably upon the freedom army.
An unhinged Laal-Pret, Theo Metcalfe, nurtures his own sinister design. As a dark dervish unleashes the terrifying spell of Tip's crypts, a self-styled Christian crusader plans the unthinkable. Stench of the last Timurid's third wish poisons every soul.
All that stands between the plundering garrisons and a savage genocide - is Mastaan.
A dervish, a warlord, a shaayar, a falcon, a courtesan, a purohit, and a djinn.
This is the final chapter of the haunting tale of 1857, Delhi.
Killing Me Softly
Genre: Murder Mystery | Crime Thriller
Blurb: An ageing, sex-obsessed Delhi adman is found naked, tied and gagged to death in his posh Delhi farmhouse. His tormented young second wife, her handsome lover and a frustrated secretary are prime suspects, but each has a watertight alibi…
This stunning whodunit compels you to keep reading until you learn the shocking truth.