Somewhere in Kolkata, my paperback lay on a waffle-knit throw beside a cup of black coffee and a plate of crackers. Mili Das, a book editor who has been reviewing books for six years, had just finished it. Her Cobra Orchard review gave it 5 out of 5.
The rating wasn’t what surprised me. (Yes, I know when I’ve written a good book). Her honesty about the beginning was. She admits she “wasn’t sure about this book” at first. It has three women at its center, she called it “women oriented,” and she didn’t expect it to be this dark.
A Book Judged by Its Women
Books get labeled the way children do, early and on thin evidence. A blurb with three women’s names in it; the bookshelf has already decided: family saga, something gentle, something slow.
Readers who love dark thrillers walk past those books every day. They’ve been taught that a story about women is a quieter kind of story, and many of them still believe it.
“I didn’t expect this much darkness, eerie suspense, and thrilling stuff in this book.” Mili Das
What She Found Instead
Mili describes a book that was “gripping, like suffocating.” She writes that the narration would force you “to take a break, to breathe.”
She noticed the eerie mood, and noticed that it never leans on ghosts. In her words, “There wasn’t anything like supernatural, but Gill masterfully created an eerie ambience.” She noticed the chapter titles too. One of her photographs is open at Chapter 13: Serpentine Gaze.
“Some books are meant to make us speechless; it is that kind of book.” Mili Das
Why the Doubt Matters More Than the 5 Stars
A five-star review from a reader who expected to love a book tells you very little. A five-star review from a reader who expected something softer tells you what the book actually does.
Manipulation, revenge, betrayal, childhood wounds that never close: the women in Cobra Orchard live with all of it. The book was written so that a story about three women would never be mistaken for a gentle one.
I’m a woman. I grew up in a home where females outnumbered the males. My father can vouch for this. Women are expressive yet there’s so much they keep to themselves. That is the space I tapped into, discovering the toughest truths and the most vulnerable feelings. It’s a world that can nurture and destroy.
“Without a doubt this is the most captivating thriller I read this year.” Mili Das
Mili’s full Cobra Orchard review is on her blog, milidas.com, and it’s worth reading in her own words. Thank you, Mili, for giving the book a chance and then giving it your honesty.
If you’ve ever walked past a book because it looked “women oriented,” explore Cobra Orchard and find out what Mili found.
A label on a book costs it a reader. A label on a child costs far more, which is what childhood labels do to the people who grow up carrying them.
Which book did you almost skip, and what changed your mind? Please tell me in the comments.
Three women. Two timelines. One curse that refuses to die. Set in the shadow-drenched villages of Uttar Pradesh, India — across the 1970s and the early 2000s.
Cobra Orchard is a psychological thriller about secrets buried so deep, even the earth forgot them. Read Cobra Orchard on Amazon Kindle and Amazon Prime Paperback.
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Terveen Gill is a writer who has always been drawn to the uncomfortable truth hiding beneath ordinary lives. A Times of India and Chandigarh Literary Society award-winning short story writer, she is also a graphic novel script writer, indie filmmaker, and a former engineer.
Her debut psychological thriller Cobra Orchard is the culmination of that instinct: a dark, immersive novel about three women, a sinister guru, and secrets buried so deep they have begun to rot.
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