Hey r/MalayalamBooks ,

We’d like to introduce Thulika, a Malayalam audiobook platform we’ve been building.

The idea is simple: bring classic world literature to Malayalam as audiobooks, using natural-sounding AI voices rather than robotic narration.

Our long-term goal is to build 1,000+ Malayalam audiobooks.

What you can do today

• 🎧 Listen for free — the first three chapter of every book is free, and every story is available to explore.
• 📚 Growing library — new books are added as we translate and narrate them.
• 🔄 Sync across devices — your playback position, favourites, and library follow you across devices.
• ❤️ Support the project — monthly, yearly, and one-time Believer plans help fund the goal of creating 1,000 Malayalam audiobooks.
• 📱 Mobile apps coming soon.

This is one of the first places we're sharing Thulika, so we're a little nervous about putting it out there 😅

We'd genuinely love to hear what Malayalam readers and listeners think — especially about the narration quality, website, book selection, and what you'd like to see added.

Give it a listen

🌐 Website: https://thulika.in

💳 Pricing: https://thulika.in/pricing

Would love to know: Which Malayalam book would you most want to listen to as an audiobook?

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Some books follow well trodden paths. Jahanna: The Rise of Martha, takes the road less travelled. It ventures into a territory that isn't explored extensively in Malayalam literature, beginning with a subject as dark and unconventional as Satanism. What makes the book stand out, however, is not just the subject it chooses, but the unusual journey through which it chooses to tell its story.

The book begins by taking us into the origins and history of Satanism, particularly around the first person to worship Satan. The opening chapters gradually create a sense that we are beginning to understand the direction of the story. We start forming our own assumptions about where it is heading and what kind of narrative lies ahead. Then, quite unexpectedly, the storyline takes a completely different road.

We are introduced to completely different places and times, where we witness and travel along with a group of people visiting an old, apparently abandoned palace in a village. Strange, supernatural and unexplained events begin unfolding around them, and suddenly the atmosphere of the book changes completely. What initially appears to be a departure from the opening storyline soon develops into something far more intriguing.

The story of a girl's revenge, which begins unfolding itself in the present, takes us backwards into the history of the village and the palace, into the life of the girl herself and, eventually, into the reasons behind her revenge. What I found particularly interesting was that this revenge was not simply something that belonged to the past. It feels as though it was never truly quenched and continues into the present, with the visitors themselves becoming part of what is unfolding at the palace. The way the revenge is conceived and carried out is also quite unconventional. It doesn't follow the usual template I would expect from a revenge storyline, and that made this part of the book feel particularly fresh and satisfying.

As the history of the place and the palace unfolds, the narrative naturally incorporates a portion of Kanthamalacharitham: Yuddhakandam. This was one of the most rewarding aspects of the book for me. Having already read Yuddhakandam, I knew the story being narrated. I knew its beginning, its journey and its eventual conclusion. Yet, when I encountered those events again in Jahanna, they didn't feel repetitive. The reason is largely the way they are placed within the narrative. The portion from Yuddhakandam is not brought in merely as a reference or an artificial connection between two books. It becomes part of the history of the place that we are already discovering. The palace and its past provide the natural setting through which this familiar story reaches us, and it becomes relevant to the larger narrative of Jahanna. More importantly, it gave me another perspective on a story I already knew. The events themselves remained the same, but their context and the way they were presented made me think about them differently. I knew what had happened, I knew how the story travelled and I knew where it would end, yet I found myself reading it with the curiosity of someone encountering it for the first time. That, to me, is a remarkable quality in storytelling.

The narrative eventually brings us back to the present and to the palace, completing another part of this unusual journey. What I enjoyed most was this movement through different layers of time and history. The book travels from Satanism and its origins to the present-day events at the palace, then backwards into the history of the place, through another familiar chapter, and back into the present again. Along the way, it even takes us into conspiracy theories surrounding Nazi Germany and Hitler. The journey is certainly not conventional, and that unpredictability kept me engaged.

Interestingly, the Satanism thread that appears to have been left behind at the beginning never actually disappears. As the story progresses, subtle clues and connections begin to reveal that it has been present underneath the other storyline all along. In that sense, I could say that, both literally and figuratively, Satanism was buried beneath the storyline that initially seemed to take the book in an entirely different direction. What first appeared to be a departure gradually reveals itself as another layer of the same larger narrative.

The sections dealing with Satanism and the ways in which people attempt to worship or please Satan are among the darkest portions of the book. The presence of blood, violence and killings is accompanied by a level of gore that I haven't encountered very often. Some of these passages genuinely sent a chill through me. The intensity of the descriptions creates an unsettling atmosphere and gives these portions of the book a particularly disturbing quality.

Yet, for me, the book's strength lies in the fact that it doesn't allow its darkness to overshadow its human side. With a theme this dark and graphic, I have often found that stories of this nature can leave less room for emotional depth, relationships and the complexities of human behaviour. Jahanna gives considerable importance to all of these.

Emotion, drama, love, trust, betrayal and dilemmas are woven into the narrative in meaningful ways. There were moments when the dilemmas faced by the characters seemed to cross the boundary between the page and the reader. I found myself thinking about their circumstances, their choices and what I might have done in their place. The relationships and the conflicts within them add another dimension to the story and make the characters feel more human amidst all the darkness surrounding them.

By the time the story reaches its conclusion, the different elements begin to feel like pieces of something much larger. The Satanism introduced at the beginning, the palace and its mysteries, the girl's revenge, the history of the place, the present-day events, the connection with Yuddhakandam and even the historical detours all contribute to a narrative that feels considerably larger than what the opening chapters initially suggested.

And then comes the ending. Rather than giving us the feeling that the journey has reached its destination, the book leaves us with the distinct impression that we have only reached the threshold of something much bigger. The ending carries the feeling that what we have just witnessed may not be the conclusion at all, but the beginning of a much larger story.

Jahanna: The Rise of Martha is, for me, a dark, unconventional and unpredictable reading experience. It took me through Satanism, supernatural mysteries, revenge, history, relationships, trust, betrayal and even historical conspiracy theories, while also giving me a fresh perspective on a story I had already read. More than anything, I enjoyed the way the book refused to stay within a familiar storytelling template and kept making me reconsider where it was taking me.

The second part of the saga is already on its way, with pre bookings underway, and after the journey this first part has taken me through, I am genuinely curious to see what comes next.