Maya's horoscope promises a marriage of death and destruction, so she
has resigned herself to life as a scholarly spinster in her father's
harem. Then, one day, he announces that he has assembled all of his
political rivals there, ostensibly so that she might choose a bridegroom
from among them. Any choice will result in disaster, as those not
chosen will retaliate violently against the kingdom. When the ceremony
descends into chaos, a stranger, not one of the assembled bridegrooms,
sweeps Maya away to his own kingdom, a mystical place with many secrets
that Maya is not permitted to learn until the new moon. When she begins
exploring on her own, disaster follows, and she sets out on a quest to
make right her mistakes.
I love the Indian-inspired aspects of
this fantasy -- it's lush and original. However, the writing is flowery
and convoluted to the point that I had a hard time following the story. I
sometimes couldn't figure out what was real and what was metaphorical,
and some things just didn't make sense. For instance, at one point this
sentence appears: "Amar's gaze was downcast, fixed on the sky." Was he
standing on his head, then? Things like that took me right out of the
story. Too bad -- I wanted to like this one, but I just couldn't wrap my
brain around the writing style.
(Reviewed from a copy borrowed through my library system.)
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