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Star Daughter by Shveta Thakrar // Night Markets, Star Courts and Desi goodness

GOODREADS // AMAZON // BOOK DEPOSITORY The daughter of a star and a mortal, Sheetal is used to keeping secrets. Pretending to be "normal." But when an accidental flare of her starfire puts her human father in the hospital, Sheetal needs a full star's help to heal him. A star like her mother, who returned to the sky long ago. Sheetal's quest to save her father will take her to a celestial court of shining wonders and dark shadows, where she must take the stage as her family's champion in a competition to decide the next ruling house of the heavens--and win, or risk never returning to Earth at all. This gorgeously imagined YA debut blends shades of Neil Gaiman's Stardust and a breathtaking landscape of Hindu mythology into a radiant contemporary fantasy.   ( A huge thank you to the  HOV Tours  and HarperTeen for the eARC and the opportunity to be a part of this blog tour.  ~When a book sees you~      Yes I am absolutely going to s

Upon A Burning Throne by Ashok Banker // A retelling inspired by Mahabharatha

In a world where demigods and demons walk among mortals, the Emperor of the vast Burnt Empire has died, leaving a turbulent realm without an emperor. Two young princes, Adri and Shvate, are in line to rule, but birthright does not guarantee inheritance: For any successor must sit upon the legendary Burning Throne and pass The Test of Fire. Imbued with dark sorceries, the throne is a crucible—one that incinerates the unworthy.

Adri and Shvate pass The Test and are declared heirs to the empire… but there is another with a claim to power, another who also survives: a girl from an outlying kingdom. When this girl, whose father is the powerful demonlord Jarsun, is denied her claim by the interim leaders, Jarsun declares war, vowing to tear the Burnt Empire apart—leaving the young princes Adri and Shvate to rule a shattered realm embroiled in rebellion and chaos....

Welcome to the Burnt Empire Saga


     First of all, a big thanks to Simon and Schuster India for providing me with a hardcopy of this book as a part of the blog tour.

     Pitched as an epic retelling of Mahabharata and as the Indian Game of Thrones, I was intrigued by this book and the prologue which is kind of long but captivating. I finished reading this book last night and have a LOT of thoughts. 

      The world building is phenomenal. It's so detailed and the author's descriptions are extremely vivid. Right from the prologue I could picture the setting beautifully which drew me into the novel. The world is diverse and there are tons of different empires and civilizations. The story is mainly set in patriarchy but in this world there exist matriarchal kingdoms too and I really was interested to see more of that.

      The characters are multi dimensional. And whatever feelings I had towards different characters from the prologue changed a LOT by the time I turned that last page. There were times when i did not agree with the things the main characters did and there were times when I agreed with the evil villains. This makes for a very interesting group of characters and while I was intrigued by them, I didn't really like any of them much. The character I hoped to see after the prologue wasn't even there for the rest of the story.

      The action scenes are so well-written. And so are the supernatural aspects. They were vivid and had me deeply engrossed in the scene.

      The writing is captivating and the descriptions gave me such good imagery of the scenes. The dialogues were a bit stilted at times though. The very first line of the book is intriguing and captivating though.
“They came to watch the children burn.”
      I wasn't a fan of the time lapse. Suddenly in one chapter Adri is a young boy and in the next chapter he's married and leading a mission and these time jumps jarred me out of the story multiple times. 

      I liked how I could draw parallels between the story here and that of Mahabharatha and yet the author has retold it with his own twists. 

      There are a couple cliffhangers in the character arcs and I'm interested to see how the author takes these characters forward. 

      I didn't like how certain things are repeated throughout. Every time Vrath is a part of the scene, there is a long paragraph about his abilities as a demi-god. The extra descriptions at certain places also felt unnecessary.

      A strong start to the series making me look forward to the next book and see how the story progresses.

(Actual rating - 3.5)
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Do you enjoy retellings? Tell me in the comments below!

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