My 2017 Bucket List of Books

My top reads of 2016

Stars in my eyes

Book review: The Star-Touched Queen by Roshani Chokshi

This is a book whose release date I have been stalking for months, after being mesmerized by the excerpt released by the author earlier. The initial preview promised a mix of Indian mythology and folklore, Rajas and Ranis (kings and queens), fantasy and romance. But what had stood out in my mind was the author's entrancing prose - her lyrical, otherworldly descriptions full of unusual imagery. So when this book was finally released, I grabbed it as soon as possible and finished it in one sitting. Did it live up to my admittedly high expectations? Yes, absolutely! That's why I'm writing this review today:)

I have not come across any other historical fantasy set in the Indian context, barring Amish's mythological "Shiva Trilogy"; so this book was an almost uncharted territory to venture into. The magical descriptions of rulers and kingdoms at the beginning reminded me of the "Amar Chitra Katha" books I used to read in childhood, while some parts of the book had similarities to Rosamund Hodge's "Cruel Beauty". But this book had enough of its own breath-taking imagery and an intensely romantic story line involving reincarnation (my favourite theme) to keep me enthralled for hours. There are so many utterly magical passages in this book that I kept going back and re-reading them so that the beauty of the words could truly sink in. I'm afraid I won't be able to stop myself from quoting the most memorable ones here:) So this review will be slightly different from the rest. I will rely more on Roshani Chokshi's lyrical prose and refrain from revealing too much of the imaginative plot. In fact, what better way to express my admiration for this brilliant wordsmith than by quoting her in this blog of words?

Source: revelwallpapers.net

Staring at the sky in Bharata was like exchanging a secret. It felt private, like I had peered through a veil of a hundred worlds. When I looked up, I could imagine - for a moment - what the sky hid from everyone else. I could see where the winds yawned with silver lips and curled themselves to sleep. I could glimpse the moon folding herself into crescents and half-smiles. When I looked up, I could imagine an existence as vast as the sky. Just as infinite. Just as unknown.

This book tells the story of Mayavati, a young princess of the kingdom of Bharata. At the beginning of the book, Maya lives in a palace full of scheming Ranis where she is ostracized by everyone because of her inauspicious horoscope promising a marriage of death and destruction. Her mother died at childbirth and her father, the Raja, is indifferent to her. So she lives in a quiet world of her own with only books for company, hungering for the unknown and imagining a world beyond what she has seen:

The week before, I had lost myself in the folktales of Bharata. Stories of elephants who spun clouds, shaking tremors loose from ancient trunks gnarled with the rime of lost cyclones, whirlwinds and thunderstorms. Myths of frank-eyed naga women twisting serpentine, flashing smiles full of uncut gemstones. Legends of a world beneath, above, beside the one I knew - where trees bore edible gems and no one would think twice about a girl with dark skin and a darker horoscope. 

Source: picswallpaper.com

The only person in the palace she is close to is her half-sister Gauri, to whom she narrates fantastic bedtime stories every night - tales of the Otherworld of her imagination, of the Night Bazaar with its strange creatures, and of Narasimha - the half-human, half-lion incarnation of the god of death. 

I wanted it to be real so badly that sometimes I thought I could see the Otherworld. Sometimes, if I closed  my eyes and pressed my toes into the ground, I could almost sense them sinking into the loam of some other land, a dream demesne where the sky cleaved in two and the earth was sutured with a magic that could heal hearts, mend bones, change lives.

With a horoscope that portends death, Maya has no hope of getting married, though she imagines the kind of love she would wish for:

What I wanted was a connection, a shared heartbeat that kept rhythm across oceans and worlds. Not some alliance cobbled out of war. I didn't want the prince from the folktales or some milk-skinned, honey-eyed youth who said his greetings and proclaimed his love in the same breath. I wanted a love thick with time, as inscrutable as if a lathe had carved it from night and as familiar as a marrow in my bones. I wanted the impossible...

The author grabbed me then and there and I was unable to let go of the book after that, even though it was well past my sleeping time :) 

Source: www.sheryna.in

Maya's country is suddenly threatened by rebel forces and rival kings. As she is the only princess who is yet to be betrothed, the Raja arranges for a fake swayamvar for her so that he can invite the neighbouring kings into his palace on this pretext and defeat them. Maya is shocked when he orders her to drink poison during the ceremony instead of choosing a groom, so that his plans of victory are not jeopardized. Maya thinks that there is no point in continuing her ill-fated, lonely existence anyway and prepares to drink from the poison vial. 

But at the last moment, she is stopped by a hooded stranger in black whose voice triggers a strange reaction in her:

It drilled through the gloaming of my thoughts, pulled at me...The hollow inside me shifted, humming a reply in melted song. I could have been a verse made of flesh or compressed moonlight. 

The stranger introduces himself as Amar, the Raja of Akaran, before rebel soldiers attack the hall and all hell breaks loose. In the pandemonium that ensues, Amar holds out his hand to Maya and asks her to come with him. Maya is overwhelmed by a strange feeling that she has lived this moment before and she almost unconsciously throws her swayamvar garland round his neck, thus choosing him as her husband:

Something else guided my hands. Images flashing sideways - a different hand, a samite curtain. I was convinced that we owned this single moment, this sphere of breath, this heartbeat shared, like a secret. 

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Amar and Maya flee the kingdom of Bharata to go to Akaran, Amar's home. On the way, Maya is stunned to see the Night Bazaar which she had always thought was a place found only in childhood fantasies. Maya finds that the market is exactly as she had imagined it to be - full of otherworldly beings and magical wares. She knows that the Night Bazaar cannot exist in the human realm and the fact that Amar has access to it proves that he is something other than human. She gets worried that she has married a sinister demon and asks Amar what he wants from her:

"I want your perspective and honesty," he said, before adding in a softer voice, "I want to be humbled by you..."

"My kingdom needs a queen," he said. "It needs someone with fury in her heart and shadows in her smile. It needs someone restless and clever. It needs you."
"You know nothing about me."

"I know your soul. Everything else is an ornament."

- whereby I was reduced to a puddle of mush :) Now you know why I had said that the author has a way with words, with a knack for writing incredibly romantic dialogues.

Amar offers Maya a blood oath that he will always protect and cherish her, and asks for her trust and patience in return. He says that he cannot reveal anything about himself till the new moon; till then she will have to trust him and live with him in his kingdom. When they arrive at Akaran, Maya finds the kingdom and the palace completely devoid of any living or otherworldly beings, except for Amar's councilor Gupta.The palace is lavishly decorated and full of stone hallways and strange locked rooms. During a tour of the palace, Gupta warns her that because Akaran is at the border of the human world and Otherworld, some of the locked doors may lead to endless holes or pools of glass, or to dense forests or night skies where one can get lost forever.

As the days pass by, Maya increasingly feels that an important part of her memory is missing, even as she is irresistibly drawn towards Amar:

When I looked at him, something stirred in me. It felt like recognition sifted through my dreams; like the moment before waking - when sleep blurred the true world, when beasts with sharp teeth and beautiful, winged things flew along the edges of your mind...

"My star-touched queen," he said softly, as if remembering something from long ago. "I would break the world to give you what you want."

Source: wallpapersnexus.com

Maya discovers a strange, intricate tapestry whose threads can alter human fates, hears the barking of bloodthirsty hunting hounds and listens to disembodied voices chanting from behind locked doors:

You can have him, but not hold him

He gives you gold, but your bed is cold

You've seen his eyes, but not his spies

Who is he?

She starts displaying unusual powers of her own, which Amar encourages her to explore further. She also keeps hearing whispers in the hallways and her nights are riddled with nightmares:

That night, I dreamed of locked doors and baying hounds, rooms that were night-dark and a beast-king that smiled and laughed around a mouthful of broken stars to sing one phrase over and over: I know the monster in your bed.

Maya finds a charred door wrapped in chains which no one else seems to see and a forbidden room which haunts her. A multitude of questions start plaguing Maya and she is unable to trust Amar anymore, even though she still can't stop being fascinated by him:

His voice wrapped around me, lustrous and dark. It was the kind of voice that could soothe you to sleep in the same moment that it slit your throat. Still, I leaned towards it.

What is behind that charred door? What are the strange voices trying to tell her? Who are the wraiths that she sees walking in the halls? What memory is her mind trying to remember? What is Amar hiding from her? Who is Amar really? Maya gets desperate for answers but does not know who to turn to for help, as Amar refuses to provide answers till the new moon day. She even sees visions of people who were part of her old life in Bharata, including her father. One day she loses patience and opens the forbidden door to discover a banyan tree with shards of her lost memory hanging from it like pieces of a broken mirror.

Does she remember what she has forgotten? Does she find out who Amar is? How does she befriend the funny, demonic horse Kamala? How does she come across the celestial, cloud-sifting elephant Airavata? Does she get to meet her beloved sister Gauri again? Can she ever experience the kind of eternal love she has always longed for?

Fortunately, to get the answers to all these questions, you don't have to wait till the new moon but only till you read the book:) I can just hint at a happy ending and the promise that there are no loose threads left untied at the end and hence no need for a sequel!

Neither the secret whirring song of the stars nor the sonorous canticles of the earth knew the language that sprang up in the space between us. It was a dialect of heartbeats, strung together with the lilt of long suffering and the incandescent hope of an infinite future.

This book is more of an ethereal fairy tale romance set in a fantastic world of myths. So one shouldn't expect complex character development, a kick-ass heroine or non-stop adventure.  It is however a coming-of-age story in a way, for Maya. As the story is narrated in first person by Maya, we get more insights into her character than Amar's. I would have liked to know and understand Amar better though; he stays somewhat mysterious till the end. I am very tempted to compare this with "Cruel Beauty" which has a similar premise, but is undoubtedly darker and more complex than this book. However when it comes to dream-like descriptions and the feel of a true fantasy, "A Star-Touched Queen" wins hands down. As a reader, I adored both books albeit for very different reasons, and would not hesitate to re-read either of them when I'm looking for something out of the ordinary.

For a die-hard romantic like me who believes in true love transcending lifetimes, this book is a treasure trove of brilliantly-hued emotions. But even if romance or fantasy isn't your thing, I would recommend this to you if you are someone who appreciates the luminous beauty and sheer magic that words can evoke within the pages of a book.

The mother of all sequels!

Take my breath away..

Last week, I experienced a phenomenon which I have rarely encountered in my book-reading journey - an author, whose series I had almost given up on, managing to completely surprise me by coming out with a game-changing sequel! To top it all, I have a sneaking suspicion that I felt exactly what the clever author had wanted me to feel - dissatisfaction with the first book's characters and their motivations only to realize in the second book that there were valid reasons for that dissatisfaction! 

Take a bow, Ms. Sarah J. Maas. I had skimmed through the first book "A Court of Thorns and Roses" taking it as a typical representative of the young adult fantasy genre. When the second book "A Court of Mist and Fury" was released this week, I picked it up only because I was intrigued by a certain villainous character who despite having an almost guest appearance in the first book, managed to steal every scene in which he appeared. Imagine my surprise when every chapter in the lengthy sequel turned out to be a revelation, with the main characters undergoing unexpected transformations and the story taking a turn I had never foreseen while reading the first book! The talented Ms. Maas kept me glued to my Kindle for seven continuous hours at night, without food or sleep! So here comes a joint review of both the books because one is of course  incomplete without the other.

The series revolves around Feyre (pronounced as "Fay-ruh"), an independent and beautiful young girl belonging to an impoverished merchant family - how her destiny takes her from a simple human village to powerful faerie courts, the hardships and deadly trials she faces, and the alliances and relationships she forms along the way. At the start of "A Court of Thorns and Roses", Feyre has given up her own dreams and taught herself to hunt so that she can support her crippled father and two sisters. They live in a village on the outskirts of a dense forest which borders Prythian, the faerie land. Prythian is supposed to be ruled by the courts of seven powerful and immortal High Fae Lords.  Humans are forbidden to cross the wall in the forest that separates the human and Fae lands. 

One day, while hunting a deer, Feyre inadvertently kills a wolf, not realizing that the wolf is a high-ranking faerie in disguise. Soon a ferocious beast arrives at her house demanding revenge for the murder of his friend, the shape-shifting wolf. Feyre agrees to go and stay with the beast to atone for the murder and keep her family safe. After crossing into Fae territory, the beast brings her to a beautiful palace in a land of eternal spring. Feyre soon discovers that the beast is actually Tamlin, the High Lord of the Spring Court, who is young and handsome but somehow cursed. Tamlin always wears a mask that hides his face and can take the form of a beast whenever he wants to. He gives Feyre wonderful gifts and makes her feel pampered and protected. Feyre, who has always been the one making ends meet for her family, slowly starts falling for Tamlin's charm. Tamlin never really reveals the full details of his curse to Feyre, though he confesses much later that the curse can be broken only if a girl falls in love with him. This part of the story is reminiscent of the "Beauty and the Beast" fairy tale and the Scottish folk tale of "Tam Lin". 

In a bid to protect Feyre from the evil fairy queen Amarantha and her imminent attack on the Spring Court, Tamlin persuades Feyre to go back to her family. Feyre however realizes that she does love Tamlin and comes back to confront Amarantha. The evil queen has  by this time captured Tamlin and taken away his powers, to add his court to the six faerie courts she has already enslaved. She tries to break Feyre's spirit but Feyre is determined to rescue her true love Tamlin at any cost. Amarantha sets three seemingly impossible and dangerous tasks for Feyre, promising that if Feyre wins these three trials, the curse on all Fae lands will be lifted and Tamlin will be free. Through sheer willpower, Feyre transforms herself into a Katniss type huntress, and receives help from a surprising ally, Rhysand. Rhysand is the powerful, devious and ruthless High Lord of the Night Court who is pretending to be Amarantha's supporter but seems to be actually plotting her downfall. Rhysand makes a bargain with Feyre that he will heal her wounds in exchange for her spending one week of every future month at his Night Court. Feyre agrees reluctantly and through her bravery and intelligence, eventually manages to win all the three challenges.  But Amarantha goes back on her word the moment Feyre wins and kills her. The curse on Tamlin and all of Fae is nevertheless broken and Tamlin kills Amarantha in his rage. All the seven High Lords are freed and in gratitude, they give a drop of their magical essence to Feyre and she is reborn as an immortal High Fae, though her heart remains human. 

So that was how the first book ended, with Feyre and Tamlin together at last and true love seemingly triumphing over evil. I didn't care much for either of them or their romance which lacked depth. Though the YA blogosphere was going into raptures over it, the book seemed nothing out of the ordinary to me (the reason why its review didn't grace my blog before today). Feyre seemed to be a bit immature and infatuated with Tamlin solely because of the attention he bestowed on her. Tamlin, on the other hand, came across as weak, ineffectual and over-protective. The only character who appeared interesting was the mysterious Rhysand, whose motives for helping Feyre remain questionable till the very end. I was wondering whether there was the possibility of a love triangle in the future (the kind I hate) or if we would see Feyre and Tamlin happily wedded by the beginning of the second book (true to a  saccharine-sweet, predictable fairy tale ending). 

Turns out I was wrong on all counts! I had found the relationship between Feyre and Tamlin too shallow because that's what it was! "A Court of Mist and Fury" starts three months after the events of the previous book and there is no happy ending in sight. We find Feyre an emotional wreck, unable to forgive herself for killing two innocent faeries as part of Amarantha's last challenge. She has nightmares of being trapped in Amarantha's prison again which Tamlin ignores, instead of helping her cope with them. Tamlin becomes more and more controlling and treats her like a prized and decorated possession, allowing her no freedom of movement or thought. On top of that, she feels latent powers brewing within her, perhaps as a gift unconsciously transferred from the seven High Lords who gave her life back. But she doesn't know how to harness these powers and Tamlin once again refuses to help her. On the day of her wedding to Tamlin, when her inner self screams to be saved, Rhysand suddenly appears and claims her week as part of their earlier bargain, and so begins her introduction to the infamous Night Court. This part has similarities to the tale of Persephone who was carried to the underworld by Hades, the lord of darkness.

However, there is a surprise waiting for Feyre as well as the readers - Rhysand's Night Court is not full of depravity, torture, suffocation and death, as touted. Instead, it's called the "Court of Dreams" - the most beautiful place Feyre has ever seen. Feyre is treated as a guest and feels carefree for the first time - staying in Rhysand's wonderfully open houses surrounded by snow-capped mountains, with no walls or windows but just the spectacular night sky and sparkling stars above. The world-building is awesome and some interesting new characters are introduced. Feyre meets and forms surprising friendships with the four powerful members of Rhys' Inner Court - his beautiful cousin Morrigan (or Mor), the otherworldly being of untold powers Amren, and the winged Illyrian warriors Azriel and Cassian. She also tours the entrancing rainbow city of Veralis which Rhys had managed to keep hidden from Amarantha and realizes how much he has sacrificed to keep his family, friends and people safe.  

Source: www.pininterest.com

Through Feyre's eyes, the different dimensions of Rhys' complex personality are revealed. Her bargain with Rhys has created a telepathic bond between them where each can hear the other's thoughts. Hence Rhys seems to be aware of every trauma she has been through in the last few months. He always treats Feyre as an equal and never patronises or tries to control her. He keeps encouraging Feyre to emerge from her cocoon, to overcome her nightmares, to learn how to read, and to explore her newfound powers. He flirts with her and teases her and their snarky banter is delightful to witness. Yet the reader becomes increasingly aware that underneath it all, Rhys is gently taking care of Feyre's every need. He does not coddle Feyre but leaves her to fight her own battles - be it with the spine-chilling Bone Carver, the deadly Weaver or the cunning Attor. Feyre slowly starts believing in herself again, regains her fiery spirit, and vows never to go back to being a puppet in anyone's hands:

I was not a prey any longer, I decided....And I was not a mouse. I was a wolf... And I bit when cornered....

I had let them make me weak. Bent to it like some wild horse broken to the bit...

I was not a pet, not a doll, not an animal. I was a survivor, and I was strong. I would not be weak, or helpless again. I would not, could not be broken. Tamed.

Source: www.pininterest.com

Rhys is one of the best fictional heroes I have ever read, one who comes across as an anti-hero initially, only to gradually display every personality trait a true hero should have. His and Feyre's slow-burn romance completely redeemed the series for me. The depth of emotion that was missing from the first book (maybe deliberately) is present in its most believable form here. Rhys and Feyre become friends first, comrades next and lovers only towards the end. The bond that they share is beyond words - they each realize how similar they are at their core. They are both warriors forced to protect their worlds, though they are dreamers deep inside their hearts.

But what I liked was that the romance was never the pivot of the story. The focus is always the transformation in Feyre - brought about first by Tamlin, then by Amarantha and lastly by Rhysand. There is also a lot of action happening in the background. There is a war brewing in Prythian - the tyrannical King of Hybern is about to attack the Fae lands, resurrect an ancient warrior and annihilate all human settlements. As the story progresses, unexpected friendships are formed while former friends turn traitors. Feyre, Rhys and their friends have to form appropriate political alliances, find magical artefacts, fight evil beings and keep their beloved city of Veralis safe. 

The book sets up the context nicely for the penultimate book in the series to be released next year. While many questions were answered and resolved in this book, new questions have now emerged. Will Feyre and her friends succeed in defeating the King of Hybern? Who can they trust as their allies? Will Feyre ever know the fullest extent of her powers? Will she and Rhys get to stay together in the end? I hope so, because they have endured a lot and are willing to ceaselessly fight for their dreams. Keeping my fingers crossed :)

The lesson learned:

Do not judge a series solely by its first book. The author may be surreptitiously planning to throw a googly at you in the sequel! :)

To end or not to end - that is the question

When a cliffhanger a night keeps death away!

Inspired by my last post about abrupt and incomplete endings in book series, I started researching the origins of the cliffhanger plot device in literature. Guess what I found? What if ending a story with a cliffhanger was the only way to stay alive?

Source: mlp.wikia.com

One of the earliest uses of the cliffhanger as the pivotal plot theme is found in the famous Arabic collection of folk tales, One Thousand and One Nights, believed to have originated in the medieval period. According to this story, King Shahryr, a Persian king of kings, angered by his first wife's betrayal, takes a new wife every night only to execute her the next morning. Scheherazade, a beautiful and clever storyteller and the latest to be chosen as the queen, devises a brilliant plan to survive. 

She tells Shahryr a beguiling story at night but leaves it at a cliffhanger at dawn. Though Shahryr is a ruthless king, like all human beings, he too is enthralled by an intriguing story and curious to know how it ends.  Thus he is compelled to postpone Scheherazade's execution till the next day when the story is complete. This continues night after night, as Scheherazade cleverly weaves a series of strange and intricate stories about morality, till the king finally repents for his behavior and and lets her live.

Can you imagine - 1001 nights of cliffhangers! No wonder the king is forced to concede defeat. I could never have tolerated even a week of that!

Source: www.youtube.com

One thing lead to another, and soon I found that the blogosphere was full of readers going into raptures over a recent retelling of Scheherazade's story, The Wrath and the Dawn, by debut author, Renee Ahdieh. It is a duology, with the second book in this series, The Rose and the Dagger, scheduled for release in May. One of my close friends, who knows her books, has already put this series on her reading list for 2016. Thus inspired, I reasoned that since May is not very far away, I might as well start with the first book in the series.

Book review: The Wrath and the Dawn

The plot:

This is the story of fearless and beautiful Shahrzad of Rey, who weds Khalid, the young Caliph of Khorasan, with the objective of exacting revenge for the murder of her friend, Shiva. Khalid is considered as a mad and ruthless monster by his subjects, because he marries a young girl from Rey each day, only to execute her at dawn. Shiva was just one of his many murdered brides. Shahrzad fiercely vows to win against Khalid at all costs, and not get killed in the process:

I will live to see tomorrow's sunset. Make no mistake. I swear I will live to see as many sunsets as it takes. And I will kill you. With my own hands.

Shahrzad discovers that things are not what they seem, and there are darker forces and political agendas at play inside and outside Khalid's palace. Khalid himself is an enigma, hiding his emotions and desires at all times, even from those close to him. Shahrzad uses her wits to keep Khalid engrossed in her stories, while fully expecting to be executed any morning. 

Thus begins a story built on the foundations of hatred, revenge, hidden agendas and deadly secrets, but it gradually grows into a complex tale of two conflicted individuals who discover that their goals, motivations and desires are slowly changing with time. In the end, they are forced to make difficult choices to reconcile their past with their present, so that they can again hope  for a future. There are some important secondary characters such as Jalal, Khalid's loyal friend and commander, and Despina, Shahrzad's irreverent but caring handmaiden. Tariq, Shahrzad's former betrothed, also plays a vital part (though I found him a bit irritating!).

Source: fiercefragile.com

My thoughts:

I adored the strength, arrogance and gracefulness of Shahrzad, or Shazi, as she is known. She is fierce and brave, yet considerate and willing to understand other perspectives. As Despina once says:

You are the Calipha of Khorasan,....and you are a fearsome thing to behold in your own right.

I really liked the slow building of the utterly romantic relationship between Shazi and Khalid, and the believable transformation of hate-to-love.

And Shahrzad's will fought him, screamed a silent scream, while her heart welcomed the intrusion as a songbird welcomes the dawn. As the dying find grace in an answered prayer..

The author does a marvelous job of portraying an equal relationship in every way. In a situation where all the power is in the hands of Khalid, the Caliph, it could so easily have been a tale of unequal power struggle and coercion. Not only does Khalid grow to admire Shazi's fearlessness, he actively encourages her:

Every day, I think I am going to be surprised by how remarkable you are, but I am not. Because this is what it means to be you. It means knowing no bounds. Being limitless in everything that you do...

You are not weak. You are not indecisive. You are strong. Fierce. Capable beyond measure....

My soul sees its equal in you.

The language is beautiful and flows like soft wine, mellow yet heady. The Arabic setting is evocative, with descriptions of garments, jewelry, weapons, cuisine, and dialects, all perfectly matching the characters and the culture.

The 'terrible secret' is well handled, even though its disclosure could have happened a bit earlier. Kudos to the author for not resorting to the 'big misunderstanding' plot device when Khalid discovers the existence of Tariq. Khalid redeems himself totally in that poignant scene when he rises above circumstances to do what is right. I think he still isn't as fierce as Shazi, but maybe by the next book, he will be.

And what can I say about the ending, which was deliberately incomplete yet satisfying in a way:

Our story may have come to a close, but your story is still yet to be told. Make it a story worthy of you...

So I write it in the sky-
I love you, a thousand times over. And I will never apologize for it. 

The sequel promises to carry on the conflicts and the relationships. The stakes are high and the odds are stacked heavily against Shazi and Khalid. Shazi, at least now, knows whose side she is on in this battle. Khalid too has grown up in terms of character development; the prologue of the next book clearly shows that he is willing to shoulder the responsibilities for his earlier actions. Tariq is definitely going to be there, though I wish we get to see less of his neediness and more of swoon-worthy moments between Khalid and Shahrzad **sigh**. I'm sure we will also see more of the mage Musa, his carpet, Shazi's father, mercenaries, rebel armies and lots of magic!

Now if I could just go to sleep till May 3rd!:)

Can beauty be cruel?

Book Review: Cruel Beauty by Rosamund Hodge

Synopsis from the Back Cover:

Since birth, Nyx has been betrothed to the evil ruler of her kingdom—all because of a reckless bargain her father struck. And since birth, she has been training to kill him.

Betrayed by her family yet bound to obey, Nyx rails against her fate. Still, on her seventeenth birthday, she abandons everything she's ever known to marry the all-powerful, immortal Ignifex. Her plan? Seduce him, disarm him, and break the nine-hundred-year-old curse he put on her people.

But Ignifex is not what Nyx expected. The strangely charming lord beguiles her, and his castle—a shifting maze of magical rooms—enthralls her. As Nyx searches for a way to free her homeland by uncovering Ignifex's secrets, she finds herself unwillingly drawn to him. But even if she can bring herself to love her sworn enemy, how can she refuse her duty to kill him?

Based on the classic fairy tale Beauty and the Beast, Cruel Beauty is a dazzling love story about our deepest desires and their power to change our destiny.

Source: www.all-free-download.com

My thoughts:

How did the author do it? How did she turn characters so twisted and bitter into people I ended up caring for? At which point did my emotions start turning in their favor? Throughout this book, I was wondering who is cruel and who is not, who is heroic and who is not, who is real and who is not, what is illusion and what is not. Is Ignifex Gentle? Is Nyx the Beauty? Is Shade a shadow? Are the Kindly Ones kind? Is the sparrow a bird? Is the Arcadia sky a sky?

The author turns every element of fairy tale on its head by making her characters seemingly unlikable yet strong, by mixing mythology and horror with a dark yet satisfying romance. Mingled with the Beauty and the Beast story are fragments from Rumpelstiltskin, the French folk tale of  Blue Beard, the Greek myths of Hades and Persephone and Pandora's box, and even references to alchemy.

Source: www.pininterest.com

The imagery of the land of Arcadia is fantastic - I could almost visualize the shifting shadows:

Demons are made of shadow. Don't look at the shadows too long or a demon might look back.

Every room and hallway in the Gentle Lord's castle is ever changing and mysterious, every door opens into some strange illusion:

The house changes. It has a will and it changes at its own caprice.

The room with the dead wives is horrifying, but the Children of Typhon are the creepiest of them all:

They sang from all around me, a million bodiless children whisper-chanting in my ears:

Five for the symbols at your door,
Telling us your name, oh.
Four for the corners of your world,
We are always nibbling, oh.

Shadows dribbled down my face and welled up out of my skin. The shadows in the hall responded, coming alive. I wanted to claw my skin off, to gnaw the flesh from my bones, anything to get the shadows out of me...

Just like the illusions in the castle, the characters in the story are flawed and difficult to categorize too. Nyx is neither good nor accepting of her fate, and her feelings are always conflicted. She resents that she was chosen to be the wife of the Lord of Bargains and not Astraia, her twin sister:

She smiles because she is safe. She is safe because I am going to die.

She is bitter but brave underneath her scars:

He said: "This house had many dangers. I cannot save you from most of them."....
Then I let go and forced a smile. "I wasn't born to be saved."

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Nyx's relationship with Ignifex is the most complex of all:

I knelt over him and smiled down into his face. My body was wrapped in ice; my voice came from somewhere very far away.
"Do you think you are safe with me?"

Both Nyx and Ignifex are conflicted and deeply flawed, yet something tender starts growing from the bitterness and enmity. We start seeing a different side to both of them:

"You deserve all of that and more. It made me happy to see you suffer. I would do it all over again if I could." 
I realized I was shaking as the words tumbled out of me. 
"I would do it again and again. Every night I would torment you and laugh. Do you understand? You are never safe with me." 
I drew a shuddering breath, trying to will away the sting of tears.

He opened his eyes and stared up at me as if I were the door out of Arcadia and back to the true sky. "That's what makes you my favorite." 
He reached up and wiped a tear off my cheek with his thumb. 
"Every wicked part of you."

The writing, as must be apparent by now, is lush and lyrical,

I could feel every contour of the space between us, and I wondered if this weakness was visible, if it glimmered off my body like an oily film on water.

...and portrays wondrous images:

“Have you seen lamplight shine through dusty air, setting the dust motes on fire?” 
He waved a hand. “Imagine that, spread across the night sky—but ten thousand motes and ten thousand times brighter, glittering like the eyes of all the gods.”

The author tantalizingly leaves some clever riddles strewn around, hinting at the solution:

The Kindly Ones liked to leave answers at the edges, where anyone could see them but nobody does.

Ultimately, it remains a story of two flawed individuals discovering that love may not always be beautiful but a handful of kindness can redeem cruelty.

Though mountains melt and oceans burn,
The gifts of love shall still return.
Where you go, I shall go;
Where you die, I shall die,
and there will I be buried.

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