Dancing with Demons by Nidhie Sharma: a review

A boxing ring in the background with a wonder blue color in it, a guy and a girl walking down a rain drenched lane; the cover of Nidhie Sharma’s debut novel Dancing with Demons has it all. What makes the cover more interesting is the ‘Soon to be made into a Bollywood film’ tag on its cover. The even better part? The tagline that says- ‘Can you love yourself without forgiving yourself?’

According to the blurb- Karan Pratap Singh is on the brink of winning the Amateur Boxing Championship, when in a moment, he loses it all. His fall from glory seems fuelled by ruthless arrogance and an out-of-control anger management problem. That, however, is just symptomatic of a deeper issue. Buried under layers of his fractured subconscious lies a childhood secret he cannot come to terms with. Sonia Kapoor is a beautiful, volatile young woman with a secret that torments her at night but a secret that she feels no guilt for. When fate throws Karan and Sonia together in Mumbai, their personal demons and pasts collide and stir up trouble in their fragile and uncertain present. But, is redemption possible without forgiveness? Dancing with Demons is a fast-paced action drama of love, loss and resurrection.

Just as I complete writing down the blurb, I cannot ignore the awesome silhouette of a guy in the back cover staring back at me. And I know for sure just then, Karan Pratap Singh is going to be my man throughout the book. Just in cue, as I started this book, I get bowled over by Karan. The descriptions used in the book were enough for letting the readers brood over their imaginations for putting their best mind forward.

The book starts with an intense boxing scene. To be frank, I was not much into the boxing thing, neither did I like the sport, but this book made me like boxing like never before. The ongoing in the fight were written so minutely that I must bow down to the authoress for researching on it so well. As I was reading about Karan and his journey, I was wondering where Sonia will come into the scene.

And when she does, she actually blows away the mind. The lives of both Karan and Sonia have been well described. Though the authoress has tried her level best in keeping some scenes in suspense but one could at least guess a part of those scenes at a few places. The story, in itself is very new to look at because there aren’t many novels these days having a combat sport as its main essence.

The intricacies of the sport have been described very well inside the book. The narrating style of the story has been flowing very nicely, giving it a very realistic touch. This is one story which I would like to compliment by saying that this book is actually written to be made to a film. Talking of films, I guess Arjun Rampal or Neil Nitin Mukesh might perfectly fit in the book! I would’ve liked the book more if there were a few more scenes related to Karan and Sonia together and if a few errors weren’t there. Apart from that, it’s a 4 on 5 for me.

PS- waiting for the film adaptation soon!