Sparks fly and love blossoms in second innings

Here is an author who loves a good romantic comedy and owns it! After just a year of her debut novel, Sakshama Puri Dhariwal is back with her second novel titled Man of her Match. Sakshama’s first book The Wedding Photographer was a romantic bestseller and Man of Her Match is also anticipated to be an exciting romcom.

After her first novel, it didn’t take Sakshama very long to begin her second one. “The protagonists of Man of her Match were supporting characters in my first book and I was curious about how their love story might unfold. I started writing it almost as soon as I finished my first book,” says Sakshama.

The plot revolves around Vikram Walia, a bad boy cricketer, and Nidhi Marwah, a confident marketing professional, who are also ex-childhood best friends. The two are forced to reunite as Vikram needs to redeem his destroyed public image and Nidhi needs a poster boy for her upcoming campaign. Sakshama says, “As a writer, it was very interesting to capture the journey of two people from animosity to friendship to love. They are such starkly different emotions and the challenge lies in making the transition from one emotion to the next feel believable to the reader.”

The media setting for this story brings together personalities that clash and in this novel the sparks do fly when they are around each other. “I believe Nidhi’s workplace is as much a character in the book as Nidhi herself,” she says.

Sakshama’s real life experiences seep into the characters that she writes. “The female protagonist is a marketing professional, which is something I did for a few years. So yes, real life experiences have definitely crept into this book,” she says. As an ardent fan of cricket, Sakshama admits that her leading male character Vikram is modeled on the Indian cricket team captain Virat Kohli.

Sakshama lives in San Francisco with her husband although she grew up in Delhi listening to Bollywood music of the 1990s. She signs off with, “I’m definitely hoping readers will enjoy the book. It will help them escape reality for a few hours. However, I do hope the book stays with readers much longer than that.”