The Star-Touched Queen by Roshani Chockshi
Official Blurb
Maya is cursed. With a horoscope that promises a marriage of Death and Destruction, she has earned only the scorn and fear of her father's kingdom. Content to follow more scholarly pursuits, her whole world is torn apart when her father, the Raja, arranges a wedding of political convenience to quell outside rebellions. Soon Maya becomes the queen of Akaran and wife of Amar. Neither roles are what she expected: As Akaran's queen, she finds her voice and power. As Amar's wife, she finds something else entirely: Compassion. Protection. Desire...But Akaran has its own secrets--thousands of locked doors, gardens of glass, and a tree that bears memories instead of fruit. Soon, Maya suspects her life is in danger. Yet who, besides her husband, can she trust? With the fate of the human and Otherworldly realms hanging in the balance, Maya must unravel an ancient mystery that spans reincarnated lives to save those she loves the most...including herself.
My BLURB
Gods, demons, fated romances. A skeletal demon horse with jokes. Lots of people acting emotionally and slightly irrationally. But I guess we can forgive them in the end.
FAVORITE SENTENCE
I see only night and smoke, dreams and glass, embers and wings. And I would not have you any other way.
my thoughts
This book actually turned out so different from what I thought, but I wasn't mad about it! Y'all know I love fated romances, and it soon became clear that there was a lot of awesome fatefulness going on in this story.Maya's relationship with her family is complicated, and at times hopeful and depressing. Her relationship with her father especially so. I loved her relationship with her sister and thought it really showed Maya's character, and explained many of her choices throughout the book.Even a favored daughter is still just a daughter.I personally enjoyed the submersion into Indian folklore and mythology, although I had to look up some of the stories on my own since we only seem to learn about Roman and Greek mythology. But I actually appreciated not receiving a history lesson in the book, and just being told things as though I should already know them. Because why shouldn't I?My kingdom needs a queen. It needs someone with fury in her heart and shadows in her smile...It needs you.I loved the world we found ourselves in for this story. The characters, the relationships, the history. There were definitely a few times where I was like, WHAT THE HECK WERE YOU THINKING OF COURSE THAT'S GOING TO HAPPEN, but eventually people came around.There was so much beautiful language throughout this book, and I do wish that we went more in-depth with the story. You know how some books teeter right on the edge of not quite providing you with that emotional aspect? That's how I felt reading this book. It was almost there, and the author could definitely take us there because of the level of the writing, but it just wasn't quite there.I know your soul. Everything else is an ornament.
SUMMARY
Listen, go read this book. It was such a beautiful read. It's good for a nice snuggle. It's been raining every weekend for a while, so I think it's also a good rainy day read.
You should definitely drink some masala chai while you read. Just throwing that out there. Go to the grocery store and pick some up. Pick up some snacks, too. Just because one can never have enough snacks.-Hawk-Amazon: http://amzn.to/2Ce8CKt