A dark, twisted thriller that keeps you guessing

Known for his romantic thrillers peppered with philosophy, Novoneel Chakraborty has seven best-selling novels to his credit. His last novel Forget Me Not, Stranger — the third installation in the Stranger Trilogy — debuted at number one on BookScan across India. The author is now back on the shelves with a racy thriller Black Suits You that is centred around 27-year-old Kiyan Roy, a reclusive author of a bestselling erotica trilogy, Handcuffs. When Kiyan appears in public for the first time to promote his books, his readers fall in love with his good looks and wit. However, one of them, a mysterious girl, gets uncomfortably close, and pursues him across cities, book events, hotels, luncheons and media interviews. “He eventually falls for her and gets embroiled in a dark and twisted love affair in which he is forced to surrender all control. But is it too late to rectify his mistakes? Will the path to desire end in doom? The book will have readers guessing till the end,” explains Novoneel. 

He calls his book, published by Penguin Random House India, a psycho-sexual thriller. “The book showcases how in today’s times youngsters are willing to cross all moral boundaries in pursuit of fame. It is also based on the theme of infidelity and there’s a lot of seduction. So the title is a play on both these ideas,” clarifies Novoneel, who recently released his book at Starmark, Express Avenue, in the city.

Interestingly, Novoneel shares that one of his inspirations for the book was in fact a ‘mysterious’ girl who followed him to three book launches. “I always wanted to write a story about a girl who had been ditched in a relationship but who doesn’t take it lying down. Also, during my previous book launches there was this particular reader who kept appearing in three different cities. I wondered if she was stalking me. While I was happy she wasn’t, the thought of it served as the idea for this book,” explains the author who is also a scriptwriter and one of the three founders of Act3 Creations, a company which provides content solutions for television, films, digital media and advertisements. 

Talking about how he creates the characters for his narrative, he muses, “There is no particular process as such. I love to observe. What excites me is an ordinary person in an extraordinary situation. Since I write about bold, progressive female characters, I interact with a lot of women to understand their psyche and then perhaps fine-tune it to make them my characters. I also make it a point to make my protagonists as relatable as possible and to offer equal excitement for a voracious reader, as well as a first-timer.”