A powerfully dramatic retelling of a Hindu epic.
This concluding volume of a fantasy trilogy focuses on the brave bride of a god.
The great Hindu epic the Ramayana forms the basis of this installment by Sheth, a mother-daughter writing team, following Shadows of the Sun Dynasty (2016) and Queen of the Elements (2017). The Ramayana is a sprawling story with a cast of thousands, and it’s been a frequent temptation for writers, from R.K. Narayan to Pearl Buck, to attempt to shape it into a modern narrative. This volume (gorgeously illustrated throughout by Johansson) concentrates on Sita, the bride of the god Rama, as she is brutally abducted by the demon Ravana and installed in his faraway kingdom as his queen despite the presence of a great many other female figures and servants already gathered there. “An extravagant harem,” Sita thinks. “I don’t understand why he adds me to his collection. Someone here must feel empathy for me. Surely, one of them can show me how to escape.” The harsh realities of her captivity quickly become apparent to Sita (“I know what happens to women like me,” she reflects), and the narrative follows the subtle evolution of her reactions to both Ravana and her own harrowing predicament. Sheth’s writing voice is completely vibrant and compelling—and this is lucky since the task the authorial team faces is almost impossible: making a third book in a trilogy comprehensible to new readers. Even the most supportive newbies will probably want to dive into the previous volumes before this one. Still, the audience will find Sita a strong and vivid character in this potent finale. Sita has a mystical connection to Earth, and her courage never deserts her during her ordeal, although some parts of her thinking gradually change. “I have the power to obliterate Ravana completely,” she muses at one point. “If I curse him, the Earth will hold my hand and join my cause. Together with the elements of nature, I can turn the ten-headed king to dust. Then why don’t I?”
A powerfully dramatic retelling of a Hindu epic.Pub Date: April 20, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-64722-147-8
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Mandala Publishing
Review Posted Online: March 23, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A fast and fun outing in an immersive alternate world.
Following The Left-Handed Booksellers of London (2020), a rescue mission lands Susan on an entity’s radar.
Susan (art student, demi-mortal) and her boyfriend, Merlin, (gender shifting and nonconforming fashionista and left-handed bookseller) are still together but taking it slowly, especially because Susan’s not comfortable with the proximity to the supernatural Old World that Merlin represents (especially because her own Ancient Sovereign father is going to be waking at the New Year). But when contact with an ensorcelled map pulls Merlin into a pocket dimension out of time, Susan doesn’t hesitate to use her heritage and artistic ability to make a translocation map to get him back safely. Their dangerous jaunt reveals the existence of a supernatural serial killer—and draws its attention to Susan. While the booksellers unravel a pattern of murders going back decades, Susan tries to avoid being the next sacrifice while grappling with fears of losing herself to the Old World and being changed into something else. And the dreams she’s having of her father’s demesne, dreams that might be more than dreams, leave her convinced that a big change is coming. All plotlines are time-sensitive enough to put the dead in deadline, keeping tension high as they face a variety of threats. While Susan’s internal conflict gets repetitive, it pays off in the climax. The leads are White; the secondary cast’s racially diverse.
A fast and fun outing in an immersive alternate world. (Fantasy. 12-adult)Pub Date: March 21, 2023
ISBN: 978-0-06-323633-2
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Katherine Tegen/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Dec. 23, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Catnip for anyone who ever wished they could walk around in their favorite book.
A young woman goes on an epic adventure while living out every book lover’s dream.
“All stories are love stories if you love stories,” and Rainy March, a 27-year-old woman living in picturesque Fort Meriwether, Oregon, certainly loves stories. Rainy’s love of literature goes beyond the surface—literally. In her job as a Book Witch, Rainy has the ability to step inside novels with the aid of her magical black umbrella and her feline familiar, Koshka. Rainy’s job, along with the other members of the Ink and Paper Coven including her grandfather, is to save stories from being destroyed by so-called Burners—conservative villains who hop into books to kill off main characters from stories they find offensive to their traditional values—or from fictional characters who accidentally wander into the real world. Rainy’s life is a little more complicated than that of your average Book Witch, however—once, on a mission, she stepped into a Duke of Chicago detective novel and fell in love with the titular Duke. Unfortunately, it’s forbidden for a Book Witch to fall in love with a fictional character lest their love end up in the novel and the canon be changed forever. But then Rainy’s grandfather goes missing on a Book Witch mission, and Rainy and the Duke must team up to track him down, along with a stolen copy of Nancy Drew’s The Secret of the Old Clock that belonged to Rainy’s late mother. Their adventures have them popping in and out of books, including, delightfully, a party scene in The Great Gatsby, and uncovering secrets that could change the course of Rainy’s life. While Shaffer’s writing is a touch too cutesy to mine real emotional depths, the charms of the heroine and the conceit itself make up for it in spades.
Catnip for anyone who ever wished they could walk around in their favorite book.Pub Date: April 7, 2026
ISBN: 9780593983584
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Dec. 26, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2026
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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