Forest of secrets

Book review: Flame in the Mist by Renee Ahdieh

A heady rush in the blood, a faster beat of the heart, every nerve on high alert - any book-lover will recognize this feeling - of unexpectedly discovering a few pages into a book that this is a rare treasure one can't let go of till the last chapter, come what may. Forget sleep, food, office work, test preparation, grocery, guests - everything. One is so sucked into the world created by the author that the world outside ceases to exist. Such authors have that extra genius - every chapter they write becomes progressively more enthralling. Such books are extra awesome - one cannot not review them. So here I am - eight months after my last novel review - driven to review this clever, clever book, "Flame in the Mist" by Renee Ahdieh. This was the last book of my 2017 half-yearly target book list and after having finished all the books on that list, I can honestly say that none of the other books came even close to this one.

I had found the author's debut novel, "The Wrath and the Dawn" enchanting, with its fiery heroine, Shazi and its slowly developing romance and Arabian Nights setting. Its sequel "The Rose and the Dagger"was good, but not as brilliant. "The Flame in the Mist"is completely different from the previous duology - with a feudal Japan setting, more historical overtones than fantasy and a lot more political intrigue. It is also less romantic, though the romance, when it comes late in the book, is breathtaking. The book does have elements of Mulan and 47 Ronin, but in the end, has an unique plotline.

The heroine of the book is Mariko, the young daughter of a wealthy samurai clan, Hattori. She has always been the odd one in the family - a cerebral person who thinks deeply before she acts, is able to read people and predict their motivations and is an aspiring inventor. Being a woman in feudal Japan, she has far less freedom of choice than her twin brother, Kenshin, though she constantly wants to learn more about the world.

Curious had been the word most often ascribed to her when she was younger. She’d been the watchful sort of child. The one conscious of every mistake. When Mariko had erred, it had usually been intentional. An attempt to push barriers. Or a desire to learn. Usually it was that. A wish to know more.
As she grew from a curious child into an even more curious young woman, the word she most often overheard at her back was odd. Much too odd. Far too prone to asking questions.
Far too apt to linger in places she wasn’t meant to be.

Source: pininterest

When the book begins, Mariko is journeying through the creepy Jukai forest (forest of demons) with her entourage, on her way to the imperial city of Inako, be married to the emperor's son, Prince Raiden. It is part of a political arrangement that is designed to elevate the status of her family. On the way, her attendants and guards are suddenly attacked and murdered, apparently by the infamous Black Clan of deadly warriors who are said to frequent the forest. Mariko overhears that the Black Clan wants to kill her and escapes into the surrounding forest. She devises a plan to track the Black Clan and infiltrate them - to find out why they intend to kill her and to plot her revenge.

Follow orders. Engender trust. Strike when they least expect it.

She is also motivated by the freedom to act as she pleases - she knows that the moment she gets back to her family, they will resume the preparations for her arranged marriage. As Mariko disguises herself as a boy and meets up with the Black Clan, she comes across as much more cautious than Ahdieh's previous heroine Shazi - Mariko is more of a planner and strategist who has to constantly motivate herself to be brave and take action. Her growth arc throughout the book from an intellectual to a warrior is a treat to watch.

We choose what we are in any situation, be it a word or an idea....

Be as swift as the wind. As silent as the forest. As fierce as the fire. As unshakable as the mountain.

The introduction to the Black Clan and its members led by Ranmaru and his second-in-command Okami is explosive - Mariko and the readers are straight away pulled into the dark forest frequented by the Clan, with its chilly streams, misty cliffs and carnivorous trees called Jubokko. Mariko pretends to be a determined but inexperienced young boy, Sanada Takeo, who has fled from his family. As she undergoes rigorous initiation training as a new Clan recruit, she realizes that the forest spirits and trees actually protect the clan from enemies and her revenge plan will have to be more carefully devised.

Never forget, Sanada Takeo, in this forest, there is no place to hide.

 As the days go by, Mariko tries to win the Clan's trust through her various invented weapons. She also discovers to her surprise that the clan actually is like a Robin Hood type gang - stealing from the rich and redistributing to the poor. As Mariko struggles to reconcile her perceptions of who is good and who is evil while still keeping her true identity hidden, she develops an unexpected friendship with the cook Yoshi and an enigmatic relationship with Okami, the quiet ninja-like warrior with strange fighting abilities. The hate-to-love relationship that slowly unfolds between Okami and Mariko is straightforward and honest, even though both are still guarding their secrets. Mariko knows that this relationship can never be, once the Black Clan knows who she really is. But still she can't force herself to stop or be dishonest about her feelings.

The stars could fall - the moon could crash from the heavens - and Mariko would not care.

Then he kissed her again, and it was a controlled fire on her tongue. The type that threatened to burn into a crashing, thrashing ache. The type of kiss Mariko had thought to avoid at all cost. The unpredictable type. The dangerous type.

Source: wall.alphacoders.com

The story never loses its pace - moving back and forth between Mariko's quest, Kenshin's search for his twin sister and the devious machinations at the imperial palace, Heian Castle in Inako:

Inako.
A city of a hundred arched bridges and a thousand cherry trees. A city of mud and sweat and sewage. A city of golden cranes and amber sunsets.
A city of secrets.

There are plots and counter-plots, family feuds, cunning consorts and enigmatic princes, betrayals and murders. It seems no one is what he or she seems to be on the surface - everyone has a hidden identity or ability. The author wonderfully recreates Japan of the feudal era with its social norms, customs, dresses and hierarchy. Her writing shows the amount of research that must have gone into the preparation of this book.

As the prologue of the book indicates, the present-day events are somehow linked to shogun Takeda Shingen's seppuku or ritual suicide ordered by the emperor ten years' back. But the readers will keep guessing what the link is till the very end. What is the wolf-life beast which follows Mariko in the forest? Who or what is the evil fox spirit? Which of the princes is more evil - Crown Prince Roku or Mariko's betrothed, Prince Raiden? Which of the Emperor of Wa's wives want more power - his wife the empress or his consort Kanako? Will Kenshin and Mariko's increasingly opposing philosophies force the twins to fight on opposite sides? Other than these questions, there are some shocking revelations at the end of the book, which have left me craving for the sequel.

Having said that, this book is still a must-read. Do not wait to buy it - make sure you get your hands on this book and then retire to a cave-like secluded place for the next five hours till you finish this book. After that go into hibernation for one day to reorient yourself with the real world again! This book is that addictive.

My 2017 Bucket List of Books

Write your own story

Book review: These Shallow Graves by Jennifer Donnelly

Josephine Montford (better known as "Jo") is a Montford by birth - one of the oldest, richest and most influential families in 1890's New York. She has lived a privileged life for the past seventeen years, wears the latest fashions, attends the most happening balls, and is about to be engaged to the scion of another rich and influential New York family. She should be happy and contented with her life, right? Nothing could be further from the truth, because Jo is not like the other society heiresses who cheerfully spend their time discussing inane topics such as tea parties, ball gowns, flower arrangements and eligible bachelors. She is a girl who is gifted with insatiable curiosity, sharp intelligence and a burning passion for truth, in an era when women are supposed to be docile, subservient and bound by rules of the society. 

Why is it, she wondered now, that boys get to do things and be things and girls only get to watch?

Any woman digressing from the accepted norms of behaviour or thinking faces social ruin, humiliation and even life-long detention in a mental asylum! Women are thought to be fragile beings, incapable of logical thinking or intelligent decision-making. A mere walk in the streets at night alone is enough to get a young woman branded as a woman of loose character or worse still, charged with insanity. In such a world, Jo is forced to keep her curiosity about the world outside her social circle carefully hidden, because she has been repeatedly warned about the consequences of being a non-conformist in society:

"You, on the other hand, wish to know things. And no one can forgive a girl for that."

"....That was what people did when they wanted to stop a girl from doing something—they shamed her.”

That doesn't stop Jo from being secretly inspired by the trailblazing American journalist, Nellie Bly, and her sensational expose on the inhuman treatment of inmates in a lunatic asylum, "Ten Days in a Mad-House". 

We who have means and a voice must use them to help those who have neither. Yet how can we help them if we don't even know about them? And how can we know about them if no one writes about them? Is it so wrong to want to know things?

Nelly Bly (1864-1922)

Things might still have continued normally with Jo accepting the inevitable and letting go of her dreams, if suddenly her father hadn't been found dead in his study, apparently having shot himself by accident. Jo and her mother are in a state of shock while her uncle helps them sort out her father's extensive business affairs. During a visit to a prominent newspaper office owned by her family, Jo by chance overhears a young reporter talking about how her father's death was actually a suicide but was hushed up by her influential family. Unable to believe her ears, Jo confronts the reporter, Eddie, to find out why he has reached such a conclusion. Little does she know that her chance encounter with Eddie will propel her into a world of people she has never encountered, situations she has never faced and secrets she has never dreamed of before! 

"The truth can be a hard thing, Jo. It’s often best left hidden."

What if everything she has ever known about the world and the people around her is a veneer? What if her father's death is not even a suicide but a murder? Who or what was her father scared of? Who is the man with the scar Jo keeps seeing everywhere? Who knows the truth and who is hiding it? 

The mysteries keep piling one on top of the other and more secrets keep tumbling out, as Jo joins forces with Eddie to find out the truth. As she delves deeper into the mystery, she also travels to the underbelly of New York - the slums, the dockyards, the brothels, the mental asylums. Eddie helps her see and experience things and perspectives to life that she has never come across in her sheltered world. She finds the outside world scary yet strangely fascinating - full of untold stories waiting to be told. She is no longer able to reconcile herself with having no life other than getting married and raising a family - she starts questioning more, she starts wanting more:

How did this happen? How did I get here? Jo asked herself. She didn’t want to do this. She wanted to be home. Safe inside her Gramercy Square town house...

Go back? How? There was no going back. Not to her old life of drawing rooms and dances. Not to Miss Sparkwell’s School. Not to her friends, or to Bram. It had all gone too far....

If only she could be bold enough, and brave enough, to claim the things she wanted: love, a purpose, a life. But could she be?

I loved how the author expertly binds two parallel tracts together - the mystery moves seamlessly on one hand, while on the other hand, Jo awakens to a new and often dangerous world outside her known boundaries, through her association with Eddie. I liked their slow-burn romance, often poignant because of its very implausibility:

He was a flame and she’d gotten burned, and the pain was terrible, yet it didn’t make the fire any less alluring.

I liked some of the secondary characters like Eddie's friend, the forensic expert Oscar Rubin, and his funny comments about human anatomy. I also loved the strange camaraderie and female kinship between Jo and the pickpocket girl, Fay - how both were constrained to do what society forced them to do, and how both longed for freedom, in spite of being from completely disparate backgrounds.

Little by little, Jo's sheltered life crumbles around her and she loses her naivete as her assumptions about people are challenged. She realizes that the past is not really buried and the dark alleys and shallow graves may yield their startling secrets after all:

"If you're going to bury the past, bury it deep..Shallow graves always give up their secrets."

As someone who has everything to lose - her reputation, her family, her riches, her love, her sanity and maybe even her life - can Jo dare to find out the truth? Will the truth ultimately make her or break her? Will she ever be able to write her own story?

The runaway bride

Book review: Night of a Thousand Stars by Deanna Raybourn

I was in the mood for a light, historical novel set in post WW I England, and picked up 'Night of a Thousand Stars' by Deanna Raybourn on a whim. I am an ardent fan of her Lady Julia Grey series and really like her writing style, plots and lead characters. Sure enough, she was in great form in this book as well. 

Straight away, the book begins with a bang - with Penelope Hammond (better known as 'Poppy') running away from the church where her wedding is about to take place to Viscount Madderly, a prosaic aristocrat chosen by her dominating mother and extremely wealthy stepfather. However, Poppy has never felt herself fit into the mould of a high society British lady of the twenties, and hates leading a life constricted by social customs and norms. 

Poppy longs to be free, to see the world and to have experiences that will help her understand who she is and what she wants in life. She knows that adventure runs in her blood, as her real father is Eglamour March, who readers of the Lady Julia series will fondly remember as 'Plum', Lady Julia's brother. The Marches are all said to be "mad as the March hare" and are infamous as non-conformists. So small wonder that Poppy decides to run away at the last moment to escape a staid and predictable married life!

Source: pininterest.com

Just as she is about to jump from the church window, Poppy encounters a young curate, Sebastian Cantrip, who curiously, instead of stopping her, actively aids in her escape plan:

"I say, if you're running away from your wedding, you're going about it quite wrong." 

Poppy persuades Sebastian to drive her to her father's house in Devon and along the way, they have a hilarious conversation where Poppy discusses her reasons for running away from the marriage. We get glimpses of Sebastian through Poppy's eyes and have the feeling that there may be more to him than meets the eye:

There was something improbable about him, as if in looking at him one could add two and two and never make four.

Poppy's mother, stepfather and irate fiancee pursue her to her father's house but she is adamant that she will not go through with the wedding, thereby causing the scandal of the decade. Poppy's efficient maid and faithful confidant, Masterman, comes to stay with her in Devon as she lies low for a while to escape the scandal. Poppy soon gets bored with the quiet life and decides to visit London to thank Sebastian for his timely assistance. Little does she know that she is about to embark on a roller coaster ride, culminating in the kind of adventure of a lifetime that she has always longed for! 

To her utter surprise, Poppy discovers that no one in the church has ever heard of a curate named Sebastian Cantrip. So who is Sebastian actually and where has he disappeared to? With the help of Masterman, Poppy tries to trace Sebastian's whereabouts as she has the nagging feeling that he is in trouble somewhere. She soon finds out his real name and discovers that he has left on a ship bound for Damascus. On an impulse, she decides to pursue him and takes up the role of secretary to Colonel Archainbaud, a retired colonel who is also travelling to Damascus. 

Damascus; Source: edugeography.com

This is when the true fun starts. An entire cast of intriguing characters is introduced, starting from the jovial old colonel and his improbably handsome valet, Hugh Talbot, to the beautiful Comtesse de Courtempierre and her flirtatious son, Armand. There is also a shadowy character following Poppy around and sending her dire warnings to leave Damascus. The ancient treasures discovered at the archaeological site of Ashkelon by Lady Hester Stanhope, the famous 19th century British adventurer, play an important role as well.

Ashkelon; Source: www.danhotels.com

Poppy does meet Sebastian again under completely different circumstances and realizes that he is nothing like the man she had met before. The mystery and danger rapidly escalate as each character's hidden motivations are revealed. The plot thickens, Poppy is embroiled in a murder, and gets plunged deep into an unknown world of espionage and political intrigue. There are surprising betrayals, murderous adversaries, cross-country chases, thrilling disguises and deadly knife fights, along with a few twists in the tale that I never saw coming. 

The author deftly counter-balances all this non-stop action with witty banter and great chemistry between the lead pair. 

"For God's sake," I muttered irritably. "What's the matter with you? Anyone would think you were the Gothic heroine." 

I began to wonder if he was afflicted with a bit of a genteel distaste for violence. It wasn't fair either, I decided. After casting off the shabby garb of an impoverished English curate, he looked like a hero out of a myth. The least he could do was behave like one.

Poppy never comes across as stupid or spoilt. She bravely faces situations she has never before encountered in her sheltered life, and yet manages to retain her sense of humour and passion for adventure. 

Something within my chest tightened then, some feeling of pride that I had risen to a challenge and given him reason to think me worthy, and - more importantly - given myself a reason to feel worthy.

The book ends on a satisfactory note, with Poppy finally realizing who she is and no longer denying what's in her blood.

'Night of a Thousand Stars' is the kind of book that I prefer to read in a single sitting. It drew me in from the very first page, kept me involved in Poppy's adventures, and invited me to jump on to the merry bandwagon. If you are looking for an entertaining, fun read with an intrepid heroine, humourous dialogues, non-stop action and a dash of romance, look no further than 'Night of a Thousand Stars'.