Book– The First Trillionaire

Author– Sapna Jha, Alok Jha

Previous Works– Debut Novel

Publishers– The Write Place

ISBN-13-  978-9384439958

Number Of Pages– 297

Blurb–
Shail, an ordinary village girl joins a government bank where she gets exposed to the glitterati of the world. It is at this point that she starts nurturing her dreams of becoming a trillionaire.
Her quest for success begins on social media where she meets Olivia who is a nonagenarian British multibillionaire.
Olivia is facing succession problems in her vast empire; to add to her woes she is challenged by Kran an unconventional scientist who is a major shareholder in Olivia’s US business.
Kran diverts Olivia’s US business funds into his futuristic endeavours and coerce Olivia to divert her Asian and European business funds to his company, ‘Near Earth Miners and Space Voyagers’.
Back in India, Shail sternly refuses to conform to Bachcha Singh’s suspicious financial transaction in the bank branch the bank branch where Shail works. This subsequently leads to her eventual kidnapping.
During this ordeal, Bachcha Singh, Bachcha Singh notes her captive’s high association with Olivia. Due to his perceived inability to handle the kidnapping, he transfers Shail to Musa Khan who is India’s most wanted fugitive.
Kidnapped Shail is kept in wretched conditions for several days in a river island in Eastern India and thereafter transferred to the western coast for further transfer abroad; Shail’s condition deteriorates. High on optimism of her freedom, Shail firmly believes that hope heals.

Review-
Shail, a poor girl brought up alone by her mother lands a job in a government bank and comes in contact with the big bad world where she meets new people, learns new things, gets laughed at , sees miracles happening, the source of which being a lady she met on Facebook.
When you get all the good, karma balances it with the bad as well and Shail is sucked into the crime world of Bachcha Singh, as the hostage of course.

The poor village girl turns out to be the heir to the topmost wealthy minds of the world called Olivia and Kran.
The connection hikes Shail’s value in minutes and once when she was held hostage for her honesty, now she is held for the unimaginable benefits that her kidnappers can derive from him.

What exactly is the story of The First Trillionaire, was it any struggle or all chance?
Read the book to find out.

The book has an eye catching cover that adds to the plus points of the book.
It has been very candidly written that makes it a simple read for readers and I appreciate that as well.
Shail’s character has been perfectly portrayed to the reader as a simple, sensitive and hard working girl and all other characters starting from the local goons to the ruthless assassins have been described well enough to give you a perfect picture of their being.

Unlike most Indian thrillers which are quite dramatic, The First Trillionaire has been presented in a straightforward manner in the first 100 pages which I found gripping because of the story of Shail’s mother which was an important aspect of the plot and needed to be introduced to the reader.
The author of the book happens to be a follower of a certain Hindu religious deity and that has been clearly reflected as one of the characters of Shail. The book has a certain aura attached to it that makes the reader feel a bit different.

Most abduction thrillers deal with the struggle of the hostage for freedom while this book focuses more on what was the response of the outside world to Shail’s kidnapping.

Ratings-
Cover- 3.5 stars
Title- 3 stars
Blurb- 3 stars
Plot- 3 stars
Writing and Presentation- 3.5
Overall rating- 3.2 out of 5 stars

Despite the fact that I loved Vanashree’s and Kran’s past life and they were important, the author has taken the pain of introducing each and every character with their back stories and going with the flow of reading them all, I concluded that they just added to the number of pages and could have been avoided.

The first chapter of the book makes the reader expect a lot more than the thrill provided regarding Shail’s kidnapping. It has been kept way too simple to match the taste of anyone who picks it for a read.
Shail’s dreams of becoming a trillionaire would have been much appreciated had they had any reason behind them, rather than being just some day dreams that she uttered in her training programme.

Reviewed By– Banaja Prakashini