This was stunning and complex. A portrait of death (and dead things walking) and incarnations and reincarnations, of gods playing games and being caugThis was stunning and complex. A portrait of death (and dead things walking) and incarnations and reincarnations, of gods playing games and being caught in the same cycle. I think it would help the reader to have some knowledge of South Asian religions (it helped me certainly) to have a deeper connection to the landscape at play. Chandrasekera's prose is lyrical and inventive. This book is bolder than Saint of Bright Doors in style. Despite magic and zombies-of-a-sort this feels more comfortably science fiction than fantasy or horror.
Genre: speculative fiction/science fiction Sri Lanka, through many ages
A portrait of death (and dead things walking) and incarnations and reincarnations, of gods playing games and being caught in the same cycle, woven seamlessly with South Asian religion and lore. The story spins out over millennia and lifetimes, reaching into the distant past and stretching into the future to the ends of the earth.
I find Vajra Chandrasekera difficult to review. His prose is lyrical and inventive and his style intensely complex in an intellectually stimulating way. Knowing his style, I fully intended to take my time reading Rakesfall, and yet at halfway through I was so invested in the spiral of reincarnation and destruction that I read the entire book in an evening. Having some knowledge of the South Asian religious landscape - the Vedas and Upanishads and Sri Lankan Buddhism helped me connect to the text more deeply. Chandrasekera is playing with traditional themes of reincarnation and mixing with his own interpretation.
This book is bolder than Saint of Bright Doors in style. Despite magic and zombies-of-a-sort this fits more comfortably in the science fiction genre than fantasy or horror. At times it reminded me of a more personal or a slice-of-life version of The Years of Rice and Salt by Kim Stanley Robinson, with the winding epic quality of iterations of life after life. At other times, it reminded me of This is How You Lose the Time War, with entities altering the fabric of the world.
Rakesfall is stunning and complex. The pacing is slow and the book is wordy - I’ve never been more thankful for having wikipedia and a dictionary connected to my kindle - but utterly beautiful. Lush worldbuilding through myth and a variety of styles is a similar technique to Bright Doors, and yet gives us an entirely different and purely wild setting.
Thank you to @tordotcompub for an eARC for review. Rakesfall is out 6/18/24. ...more
This required some patience. It's swirling prose and sweeping story did not quite come together for me overall. But absolutely left me craving Indian This required some patience. It's swirling prose and sweeping story did not quite come together for me overall. But absolutely left me craving Indian food. It's a different kind of love story, very bittersweet in all eras (present and 1930s) set in South Africa, with Desi ex-pats. I enjoyed the different sort of diasporic setting and time.
This is out 1/9.
Genre: fiction Durban, South Africa, 1919-1932 and 2014
Akbar Manzil, a once grand mansion, stands in disrepair by the sea in Durban, South Africa. In 2014, Sana Malek moves to Akbar Manzil with her father. He’s grieving from her mother’s death four years prior. She carries the burden of being the surviving conjoined twin, haunted by her sister who died shortly after they were separated. Everyone in Akbar Manzil has a story, but the most interesting story is one from 1932 that Sana uncovers in the form of journals: the story of Akbar Ali Khan and his second wife Meena. As Sana reads these journals, she finds herself drawn to Meena’s story, of all she’s given up in order to live a life of sweeping love and devotion.
The Djinn Waits a Hundred Years is a slowly unfolding story of love, family, and what it takes to grant forgiveness. It’s also a ghost story, with ghosts of everyone’s pasts echoing in the dilapidated mansion. Akbar Ali Khan is a Muslim and devotee of the Sufi poets, and the tone of the novel mirrors that reflective and poetic tone of Rumi and Hafez. There is a haunting quality to Sufi poetry–in its absolute devotion to the Divine–and Shubnum Khan captures that eloquently.
The widespread roots of the story come from India, with Desi main characters in both timelines. I love reading stories set in the South Asian Diaspora. Sana’s father, in his grief, taught himself to cook, in part because his wife never could. Grieving through cooking is something tangible and relatable, and it’s amusing because he clearly has learned from cookbooks rather than from women who cook. He’s often found muttering in the corridors about spices. It’s touching because his experience is both wholly irrelevant to the plot, and yet completely relevant to the nature of human experience.
The story has a lot of thoughtful points, but takes a long time to build and doesn’t always connect the points. If you have the patience for a slow unfolding and sweeping story with only the absolute lightest touch of magic - the liminal space between life and death where the Djinn and Sana’s sister reside - this will pay off for you. Be prepared for a craving for samosas, daal, and dosas.
Thank you to Viking Penguin and NetGalley for an eARC for review. The Djinn Waits a Hundred Years is out 1/9/24. ...more
Set in contemporary Kolkata, bridging two worlds. Full of dragon lore of course. With references to Smaug and Anne McCaffrey, also Nagas of South AsiaSet in contemporary Kolkata, bridging two worlds. Full of dragon lore of course. With references to Smaug and Anne McCaffrey, also Nagas of South Asia and influences from Chinese dragon culture, too. Discussions of religion, identity, race, and gender, of memory and forgetting and vanishing. Utterly gorgeous.
Genre: speculative fiction Calcutta, present day
Ru, a young boy living in Calcutta, knows his family is different. They use a Christian last name, but don’t practice Christianity, and Ru’s classmates tease him for his racial differences. His parents are oddly elusive over telling him their origins. “You wouldn’t believe it if we told you,” they always say. Any time Ru starts to remember, he must drink the Tea of Forgetfulness. The family keeps to their own small community, Ru feeling slightly unmoored, until he meets Alice, daughter of the owners of the Chinese restaurant. Their friendship gives Ru hope and meaning as he grapples with his identity as more than just an outsider.
The Last Dragoners of Bowbazar is haunting and gorgeous. The lyrical prose fits Ru’s life of swirling memories and broken identity. The novella borrows from dragon lore of South and East Asia, as well as classics of SFF dragon subgenres like Tolkien and McCaffrey. Ru tells himself that dragons aren’t real as he’s imagining Smaug, but the real dragons truly are entirely different. The beauty of the book is unwinding Ru’s identity, discovering the real dragon lore, and basking in pensive prose.
There is a possibility that this was the Meggiest book of 2023, which is fitting because I read it on December 30. It has all of the elements I love in a speculative fiction novella - questions of identity, religious themes (in this case a rejection of the religions of man and an embrace of the religions of the dragons), deep friendship, gender identity, and abiding love in many forms. It’s short, at under 120 pages, and comes with equal measures of challenge and comfort. ...more
I'd read more billionaire romances if they were all like this. I love the deep Punjabi roots and passionate, smart, and sexy characters.I'd read more billionaire romances if they were all like this. I love the deep Punjabi roots and passionate, smart, and sexy characters....more
This was really clever, with many layers of SF thought from bot-rights to political maneuvering to people's rights mixed with the rich fantasy of a muThis was really clever, with many layers of SF thought from bot-rights to political maneuvering to people's rights mixed with the rich fantasy of a multicultural Aladdin (and the author remarks about how multicultural the original he knew from Kolkata was). However, the unreliable narrator of the Jinn-bot Moku made the story harder to follow, and it was too long. Very funny and a lot of action, though and if I can get a copy on audiobook at some point I'll definitely reread that way because I think I'll engage with it better.
Genre: science fiction
Lina (a human) lives in a world rife with political corruption and warring powers. Her brother Bador, (a bot that looks like a monkey) is bold and a little snarky. They’ve attached another bot, Moku, the narrator, who also has a mind and ambitions of his own, trying to control parts of the story. The trio is out on a dangerous adventure under pressure from a powerful enemy. There’s one thing that haunts them, the slogan “Aladin lives”, referencing a folk hero and underground rebellion. In a tale of star-crossed lovers and a fight for the rights of humanity and bots, Lina, Bador, and Moku race to save Shantiport, while traitor Antim seems to have the power of a Jinn granting him wishes towards success.
This was really clever, with many layers of SF thought from bot-rights to political maneuvering to people's rights mixed with the rich fantasy of a multicultural Aladdin (and the author remarks about how multicultural the original he knew from Kolkata was). I’ve often admired Samit Basu’s worldbuilding, as he draws from familiar South Asian marketplace and cityscape settings but then makes them his own. He never specifically lays out the setting, and yet while reading I always had a strong sense of the world of Shantiport.
The bot Moku is our narrator throughout the novel, which is a really interesting choice. At times, I loved it, and at times I found it much harder to follow the plot. An unreliable narrator - especially one telling a story in present tense - reveals only glimpses of ongoing action and plot development. In a book this long, I found that frustrating at times.
This romance reader obviously loves a marriage of convenience story, and I laughed at Moku’s voyeurism and Bador’s innate desire to express himself sexually (despite being a bot without the proper organs). Moments like this kept me engaged in the novel, even when I sometimes lost the overarching plot threads.
If this becomes available on audiobook, I’ll likely go back for a reread. This richly reimagined tale of Aladdin complete with bots’ rights is right up my alley, and I was disappointed that parts of it fell short for me. ...more
In this retelling of Jane Austen’s Emma, Kamila Hussain has it all. She loves bold colors, fashion, her bichon frise named Darcy, hosting elaborate paIn this retelling of Jane Austen’s Emma, Kamila Hussain has it all. She loves bold colors, fashion, her bichon frise named Darcy, hosting elaborate parties, finding the perfect matches for her friends, and low-commitment hookups for herself. She cares deeply for her father, looking out for his physical and mental health and enlisting Rohan Nasser, who she has known since childhood, to help keep her father happy. And yet, people constantly underestimate Kamila. She works as an accountant at her father’s boutique firm, bringing in clients suited to her personal style, which to the “serious” accounting types mean she’s less smart or less capable. She’s out to prove that just because she puts on events called the Puppy Prom doesn’t mean she’s a CPA with a big brain and a bigger heart.
I’ll start by admitting that I’ve never read Emma, and that the only version I’ve watched is Clueless (and even that wasn’t until a year ago!!). However, as with most Austen stories, the plot is woven into our modern culture. This is Farah Heron’s best novel yet. She artfully peels back the layers of Kamila to reveal an incredibly capable and empathetic woman. The friends to lovers romance that unfolds between Kamila and Rohan is so believable – you know when two people obviously love each other deeply and yet don’t know how to take the jump, and their entire friend group can see it happening? All along the way, you’re rooting for Kamila to open her eyes to see how Rohan feels and for Rohan to gain the courage to say something.
Thanks so much to @readforeverpub and @Netgalley for a copy of this for review. It’s out 3/8/22 and if you’re looking for a sweet friends to lovers complete with cute puppies and Bollywood-esque moments, I strongly recommend picking it up!
Kareena Mann has been pegged by her family as a “difficult woman.” What that means in the Desi community of Jersey City is that she’s career oriented Kareena Mann has been pegged by her family as a “difficult woman.” What that means in the Desi community of Jersey City is that she’s career oriented and driven and still single at thirty. Perhaps she’s set her standards too high, they tell her. Now she’s torn by an ultimatum - she wants to buy her house from her father before he retires, but the only way she’ll be able to afford the downpayment is upon receiving the money her father has set aside for her upon the occasion of her engagement. Set on a love match, but running short on time, Kareena is determined to do what it takes to buy the house she grew up in.
When she meets Dr. Prem Varma at a bar, they have instant chemistry. Like, make out in the back office chemistry. Until she finds out that he’s also Dr. Dil, a local TV persona who makes claims about how love is actually medically dangerous for the heart. But he needs her as much as she needs him - he needs funding to create a community health center dedicated to serving the needs of the South Asian population in New Jersey, and showing his investors that he’s in a stable relationship should be the winning combination. But even in a fake relationship, can a woman looking for true love find any kind of happiness with a man who says love is harmful?
I saw @angelreadsromance post a review about this one and hightailed it to @netgalley to request it. If there’s a contemporary subgenre I read more of than any other, it’s Desi Romance, and this one did not disappoint! This has shades of Taming of the Shrew/10 Things I Hate About You/Kiss Me Kate, but I wouldn’t explicitly call it a retelling. While I’m often annoyed at the “thirty is the benchmark for getting married” trope and also that of calling a career-driven woman with standards “difficult”, in the setting of the expat South Asian community it works. Kareena and Prem have undeniable chemistry, and there are complex layers of family expectations on top of their fake relationship.
I really enjoyed Dating Dr. Dil and breezed through it in under 24 hours, because I couldn’t put it down. It’s also one of the spicier desi romances I’ve read. And if you read “Dr Phil” at any point instead of Dr. Dil, don’t worry, Sharma lets Kareena lean into that comparison. ...more
Coming from a background of knowing Kaikeyi’s story from an academic perspective and with the Ramayana fresh in my mind, I loved watching this play ouComing from a background of knowing Kaikeyi’s story from an academic perspective and with the Ramayana fresh in my mind, I loved watching this play out. You do not need to be familiar with Ramayana in order to read Kaikeyi, and I think Patel does a wonderful job writing for audiences who both know and do not know Kaikeyi’s destiny in advance. But like with the retelling of a Greek myth, or even reading a romance, you may know the ending but reading is about the journey and the stylistic choices by the author.
Most of my academic ponderings on this one would lead to major spoilers for the book, but if you’ve read this one and you’d like to chat, my DMs are open. My masters thesis focused on Sita, Kali, and Radha and representations of goddesses and feminism in Indian religions, so Kaikeyi as a novel sits solidly in my wheelhouse.
This is an impressive debut with what could be considered sensitive subject matter! I listened to the audiobook for most of the book, which makes the first person POV more appealing to me. I also love Soneela Nankani as a narrator (though admit it was a little confusing to listen to two different books narrated simultaneously by her, as I was also listening to Empire of Gold by SA Chakraborty).
While rereading Ramayana initially, I remarked that thanks to Kresley Cole I was imagining Ravana as a cross between Malkom and Sian, and I admit that Patel’s version of the Rakshasa king only reinforced that idea…
I was bound to love this one. It narrowly missed the 5 star mark for me with pacing I sometimes found difficult, but I’d recommend this widely to readers even without prior familiarity with Indian epics. ...more
Another novel from Sara Desai’s Patel Family, the Singles Table makes up for the giant weddings we didn’t get to attend in 2020 and 2021.
Lawyer Zara Another novel from Sara Desai’s Patel Family, the Singles Table makes up for the giant weddings we didn’t get to attend in 2020 and 2021.
Lawyer Zara Patel loves a good challenge, and she’s trying to give her Aunties a run for their money this wedding season by matching perfect couples. She won’t look for a match for herself, of course, because she’s career oriented and isn’t interested in anything serious. When she meets the arrogant Jay Donovan at a paintballing bachelor/bachelorette party, she makes him her next mission to match. Except their “information gathering sessions” are oddly akin to dates and they have an undeniable chemistry.
This is my favorite of Sara Desai’s books to date. It has snappy humor, the perfect meddling Aunties, and antagonistic enemies to lovers who can’t see what’s in front of them. It falters a little bit with a jumpy plotline, which I thought may have been part of my reading mood, but saw a few others say something similar. Zara is my favorite of the Desai’s heroines - eschewing corporate law because she’s found her niche law firm, dressing as a Zombie, standing out in a crowd. Jay’s past and his push for success makes him a perfect match for Zara. But I almost threw my kindle across the room at the epilogue, and it definitely lowered my overall impression of the book. ...more
When Niki Randhawa loses her job, she suddenly feels adrift. The “good daughter” in a Sikh family, Niki has always lived with her parents, worked in aWhen Niki Randhawa loses her job, she suddenly feels adrift. The “good daughter” in a Sikh family, Niki has always lived with her parents, worked in a safe job, saved her money, and planned for the future (in contrast to her sister Jasmine who lives with her boyfriend and has a career in the arts). This sudden change gives her the opportunity to travel to Mumbai for her best friend Diya’s wedding, which happens to take place on Diwali. She meets Sam - who happens to be Diya’s best friend from childhood, Sameer - and instant chemistry makes her giddy with possibilities. Embracing the spirit of the season, full of light and color, Niki starts to reevaluate her outlook on life. A beautiful story connecting romance, family, and culture.
This book was very sweet, colorful, and a fun read. Because Niki is Sikh, she doesn’t know as much about Diwali as her Hindu friend Diya, and it allows Lalli to teach her readers about the holiday and its meaning to Indians of varying faiths. I loved that she places Diya’s wedding on Diwali, since as Diya exclaims, “You know that essentially diya means ‘light’ in English...It is the festival of me!” The book does suffer a bit from lack of a clear audience. I wasn’t sure if this book was meant for diasporic or Non Resident Indians like Niki, if it’s meant for non-Indian reader like me: there were a lot of parentheticals and side commentary to help with a reader’s education on topics like Diwali, religion, and caste relations. That all said, this is absolutely worth picking up because there are so few books centered on holidays in non-Christian religions, and I would recommend it on that basis alone!...more
Daisy Patel finds herself in the awkward position of encountering her ex-boyfriend and her former boss entwined in the bathroom while she’s pumping quDaisy Patel finds herself in the awkward position of encountering her ex-boyfriend and her former boss entwined in the bathroom while she’s pumping quarters into the sanitary napkin dispenser for a pitch at a conference…only to run into an aunt (begging her to meet a suitor)... and then literally run into her high school crush/biggest heartbreak while her arms are still full of pads. Liam Murphy, former bad boy college dropout now venture capitalist on his way to a partnership, is back in town for his grandfather’s wake. When the will is read, he is granted the family distillery on the condition that he marry before his next birthday (in two months). Who knows him well enough to go through with this plan, and yet hates him enough to not worry about catching feelings? Obviously Daisy Patel, younger sister of his high school best friend. Daisy agrees to throw her meddling family members off her case to find a husband. In order to make their fake relationship appear real, Daisy organizes a dating plan for them to follow. But, as is always the case with a good fake relationship, feelings get in the way of all the best laid plans.
First, to my hockey fan friends, this one did bum me out a little. As you all know, there’s no halftime in hockey. Seeing that appear twice during the hockey game date really threw me off, especially because the rest of the hockey game was legit, including real players from both teams and realistic sounding gameplay. Ok, enough dwelling.
I enjoyed this one a lot more than The Marriage Game, not the least of which is because fake relationship is my favorite trope...enough to make up for second chance is among my least favorite tropes. Filled to the brim with meddling families on both sides (one Indian, one Irish) this was a very fun read. And while I’m generally very serious about series order, I actually think you can either skip Marriage Game or read it second instead. ...more
3.5 stars rounded up. A little over the top with some of the dramatics, but still really cute. . Reena Manji definitely doesn’t want to marry any of the3.5 stars rounded up. A little over the top with some of the dramatics, but still really cute. . Reena Manji definitely doesn’t want to marry any of the “eligible” bachelors her parents present to her. When she meets dashingly handsome new neighbor Nadim, she’s immediately attracted to him -- until she discovers that he’s the next of those eligible bachelor, and she says she won’t marry her parents’ choice. But then Reena ends up with the opportunity she’s been waiting for - a chance to compete in a cooking show! The catch - it’s a family-centric program designed to showcase Canada’s diversity, and it requires a partner for participation. Then a drunken evening of cooking bhajias turns into their first entry, and Nadim and Reena agree to become fake-engaged so that they can compete. When things start heating up outside of the kitchen and feelings become involved, Reena isn’t sure what to make of what her future with her real-boyfriend/fake-fiance could be. . There were parts of Accidentally Engaged that I really enjoyed. Reena and Nadim have great chemistry in the kitchen and in the bedroom. I love the emphasis on the Tanzanian-South Asian diaspora, which we don’t often see in popular fiction, and the food that comes from that culture specifically. Plus it's got bonus recipes in the back!! Marley, Shayne, Amira, and even Saira are great friends when Reena needs them the most. And who doesn’t love a family chock-full of secrets! But the book felt packed with plot and extraneous details. A major sub-plot involves Reena’s father being swindled by a crooked architect, and as someone who works in the industry I’m really baffled as to how a seasoned developer could lose so much money to an architect when the developer have all the power as the client and don’t (or shouldn’t) pay an architect until we’ve handed them our drawings. That aside, the plot accelerated at the end, and while I was pleased with the way the story resolved, the book itself left me wanting more. ...more
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