Chandigarh-bred Canada-based Sonal Bawa Bakshi comes out with her debut novel – What Comes From Within

GROWING up in Chandigarh, reading and writing have been Sonal Bawa Bakshi’s two constant companions for as long as she remembers. Any book, magazine, novella, comic she could lay her hands on, notepads she could scribble on endlessly – “I would simply unwind and unleash. If books were my beautiful escape, writing became my medium of communication and expression,” says Sonal, who penned her first poem at age ten.

In town for a visit, Sonal is out with her debut novel, a thriller with a pretty feisty leading lady at the heart of it. Love, passion, friendship, betrayal, survival, What Comes from Within has all the racy masala of a modern revenge thriller for the time impoverished millennial.

Interestingly, it was a short story assignment at a creative writing workshop that formed the foundation of this book. “My sister found the premise exciting, and encouraged me to work on it further, write it as a full fledged thriller. It took a year-and-a-half, five drafts, juggling with plots, lending more substance to my characters, plenty of roadblocks and frustrating moments, patient mentoring by my editor, Vincent Varghese, to give shape to the storyline,” says Sonal.