It Must've Been Love, but... by 2024 Asha G. Kumar NEUF

"Life has a perverse penchant to reward and to punish. At times, it is hard to decipher one from the other."The charming Apeksha Ayengar, meets her partner, Maya, in the unlikeliest of places: in a school where they both teach! A mother of two, the affluent but lonely Maya is entranced by Apekshas confidence and passion towards life. Their intense, forbidden love unfurls in the shadow of Apekshas bereavement for her mother. Distraught at losing her soulmate, her mom, Apeksha, finds anchorage in Maya. Mayas intense love seeps into Apekshas being. Maya too wants and needs Apeksha. She is keen to pursue selfhood, her true sexuality, and yearns to "live." But, Apekshas love is blindsided by a dangerous, concealed streak in Maya, who battles conviction and convenience. Caught in a vortex of violent emotional upheaval, Apeksha discovers the depths of darkness of the human mind, loves potency and its ability to push its victims to pernicious heights.Exploring the limits to womens freedom, this novel debunks several stereotypes about modern Indian women and their passion, while examining an entire spectrum of selfhood, sexuality, love, loss and betrayal.

Asha G Kumar is a writer, educator, thinker, and an eternal optimist. Armed with a Masters in English Literature and 14 years experience as an educator, heading the English department dovetails with a lifelong enthusiasm for literature. After chasing deadlines, negotiating nerve wracking schedules and trying to infuse love towards the written word during the course of a day, it is the world of books, the land of fantasy and the fervour of writing that keeps her motivated. In this debut novel, alongside the potency of love, she explores the limits to womens freedom and debunks several stereotypes associated with modern Indian women and their passion.Her debut collection of poems, Meandering Expressions, was self-published in October 2020 and is available on Amazon as an ebook.Asha is working on her second collection of poems - Moods, Moorings and Memories as well as her second novel, Trysts with Life, a saga of 3 women and their indefatigable spirit.Besides writing, she enjoys public speaking, travel, bird watching and photography.