Silence in the ghats

Jesal Varma writes about monsters. As India's queen of dark romance, she's made a fortune romanticizing the scarred, the obsessive, and the dangerous. But when her latest novel flops, she retreats to a remote, glass-walled villa in the jungles of Coorg to find her spark. She wanted isolation. She got a nightmare.When a global pandemic triggers a total national lockdown, Jesal's "civilized" world shatters in forty-eight hours. Her staff deserts her. The power grid fails. The high-tech "lantern" she calls a home becomes a beacon for every predator in the Western Ghats-and the most dangerous ones aren't the elephants outside the glass.Her only hope is her neighbor, Jay. A man who doesn't "growl" like her fictional heroes; he acts with a brutal, silent efficiency. He is a survivalist who views Jesal as a liability to his perimeter. To stay alive, Jesal must trade her platinum cards for a billhook and her vanity for competence.But as the line between civilization and the wild vanishes, Jesal discovers the terrifying truth: Real monsters don't have redemption arcs. They just bleed.In the silence of the jungle, she will learn the cost of survival. And she will realize that some secrets are better left buried in the river.