''The Girl from Nongrim Hills'' is a 2013 fiction novel by Indian author

Ankush Saikia Ankush Saikia (born 1975 in Tezpur, Assam) is an Indian author. He grew up in Madison, Wisconsin; Assam; and Shillong, Meghalaya. Saikia has previously worked as a journalist at ''India Today'', ''indiaabroad.com'', and ''Express India'', and as ...

. The book was first published on October 1, 2013, through Penguin India and is Saikia's second novel, following his 2007 book ''Jet City Woman'' and is his third published book.

Development

Saikia came up with the idea for ''The Girl from Nongrim Hills'' after coming up with the idea of "money changing hands in a hotel room in

Shillong Shillong () is a hill station and the capital of Meghalaya, a Indian state, state in northeastern India, which means "The Abode of Clouds". It is the headquarters of the East Khasi Hills district. Shillong is the list of most populous cities in ...

" and came up with two of the book's characters shortly afterwards. He chose to include elements such as extortion, arms smuggling, and kidnapping as they were "only too common in the Northeast" and believed that it would "provide the basis for a good noir story". He chose to set the story in Shillong as he was familiar with the area and saw that several scenes in the book would work well with the city. He based the characters of Bok and Kitdor on several Shillong boys he knew and took Bok's enjoyment of 80s music from Saikia's own enjoyment of the music from that era. It took Saikia ten months to write ''The Girl from Nongrim Hills'' and he found the editing and resolution of the novel to be the most challenging aspects of its writing.

Reception

Critical reception ''The Girl from Nongrim Hills'' has been mostly positive. ''

IBNLive Network18 Media & Investments Limited, (formerly SGA Finance and Management Service and Network18 Fincap Limited) commonly referred to as the Network18 Group and sometimes as the Network18–Eenadu Group, is an Indian media conglomerate owned b ...

'' noted that while the book did have one inaccuracy, they found the book hard to put down and enjoyed Saikia's writing overall. ''

The New Indian Express ''The New Indian Express'' is an Indian English-language broadsheet daily newspaper published by the Chennai-based Express Publications. It was founded in 1932 as ''The Indian Express'', under the ownership of Chennai-based P. Varadarajulu Naid ...

'' and ''

Deccan Herald ''Deccan Herald'' is an Indian English language daily newspaper published from the Indian state of Karnataka. It was founded by K. N. Guruswamy, a liquor businessman from Ballari and was launched on 17 June 1948. It is published by The Printe ...

'' also gave positive reviews for ''The Girl from Nongrim Hills'', and both papers praised the book for its characters and pacing.

References

External links

* 2013 Indian novels Novels set in India Indian thriller novels Penguin Books India books {{2010s-thriller-novel-stub