Across the mortal and immortal realms, celestial dancers known as apsaras are revered for their beauty, allure, and enchanting magic. But Meneka knows that is not all they are. Trained as a weapon—a warrior—Meneka despises leaving each of her marks in thrall to her potent illusions. With every seduction Lord Indra, king of heaven, demands of her for his political gain, she craves her freedom more and more.
When a mortal sage’s growing powers threaten Indra’s supremacy in his own realm, Meneka seizes a rare opportunity. She strikes a deal—if she can seduce this dangerous man, Indra will allow her to forgo future missions. But upon meeting the sage, Kaushika, Meneka finds herself captivated by his energy, ignited by his empathy and passion, even though he challenges everything she’s ever known. Can she overthrow the man who she is—little by little—falling for, or is Kaushika seducing her instead? As war looms in the skies, Meneka must choose between her duty to protect her home and the thrumming of her own heart.
Nancy's Thoughts:
I was excited about reviewing this book, a fantasy based on a culture American readers rarely see. Unfortunately, it didn’t prove to be as absorbing as I’d hoped it would be. While many things about it are superbly done, the way others were handled made this a very difficult book—at least for me—to get into. I’ll share the positives first and then discuss the problems I had, which may not be as much of a problem for others as they were for me.
One aspect of the book that struck me immediately was the author’s excellent crafting of descriptions. As Meneka returns to Amaravati, the god Indra’s celestial city, this is what we see
(p. 7):
The city hums under my feet as I walk. . . . The rock-paved pathways glisten under the golden light. Somewhere a bird sings sweetly, holding a single warbling note that strums through my heart. Laughter echoes here and there though I see no one. The citizens are hidden within glorious buildings, ensconced in fragrant night gardens. The same gentle breeze that brought me back home rustles though the city, this time with scents of lightning and storm, scents that belong to Lord Indra. His magic spirals lazily through the city, tiny sparks that flicker and flash.
In this paragraph, we not only see what Meneka sees but understand what she feels at this homecoming. The description helps lay the groundwork for scenes of her anxiety over the city’s fate if Kaushika draws people from their worship of Indra.
The supporting characters, for the most part, have depth that keeps them from being cardboard background figures, Rhamba, Meneka’s mentor, is loyal to Indra but also concerned about Meneka’s doubts as she prepares for her mission to seduce Kaushika. His students aren’t given as much in the way of layering, but the three most important, his two closest friends and Meneka’s close friend are sketched with enough detail to set them apart from the others. Students at Kaushika’s hermitage study magic. The ways they learn it, the difficulty Meneka has demonstrating some magic without revealing her celestial nature, and the mystery of what drives Kaushika are interesting.
I don’t bring much knowledge of Hindu mythology to the table, but I found the depictions of the gods and their relationships believable. I could appreciate the differences among them as shown in the story.
Kaushika’s desire to worship Shiva and his dislike for Indra, coupled with his attention to his students, came across as likeable from the outset. Only later does the reader learn there is a darker, but still understandable, purpose behind what he’s doing.
On the downside, I wasn’t able to root for Meneka until about halfway into the story. When we meet her, she’s engaged in seducing a queen who must be punished for turning her people away from worshipping Indra. Meneka’s job is to make the woman so enthralled with her that she won’t be able to function effectively after Meneka leaves. Punishing someone for not worshipping one’s god isn’t a goal I can get behind.
Meneka is uncomfortable with using her sexuality this way and wants this to be her last mission. Her concern, though, is that she not perform these missions. She has no issues with someone else doing so.
Later in the story, we learn that Indra supposedly depends on people’s prayers to empower him so that he can help them, which might be a better reason for wanting them back in the fold if it were consistently the case, but Meneka isn’t trying to turn this queen—and doesn’t intend to turn Kaushika—back to worshipping Indra. She intends only to punish them.
Only as Meneka begins to have doubts about Indra does she become more sympathetic for me. Her philosophical discussions with other students, which she intends to seed doubts about Kaushika’s view of asceticism and his devotion to Shiva, twist around on her and seed doubts about Indra. Rao creates these twists very effectively.
Another problem I had with the book is that, although this is sold as a romantasy, Meneka and Kaushika spend almost no time together until about page 100. Once they did, their philosophical jousting and their attraction to each other made them an intriguing pair.
My biggest problem with the book, though, is that it abounds with unfamiliar words, only some of which are in the glossary at the front. These words are rarely explained in context. We don’t get references to “gandharvras, Indra’s celestial musicians,” in the story. We get gandharvras doing something with no explanation of what they are.
Every time I have to stop reading and look something up in the glossary in the front, it pulls me out of the story. So I would look up a word, go back to the story, run into another unfamiliar word, go to the glossary and discover it isn’t there, which is extremely frustrating, and so on. By the time I’ve run across three of four more unfamiliar words, I’ve forgotten what the first word I looked up means and have to stop and look it up again the next time it appears.
If I don’t know what a word means, I don’t have a complete picture of what’s happening in the story. Of what choices mean. Of what things look like. This yanks me out of the story every single time.
There may be readers who just skip over unfamiliar words and don’t worry about them. That’s fine. To each her own. But I need to know what I’m looking at and what it means. When the author says a character’s “dhoti flapped in the wind,” I need to know what a dhoti is (are?). So I don’t know what’s happening and am yanked out of the story wondering about it.
By about chapter eleven, when Kaushika and Meneka are spending more time together, I had finally absorbed the meanings of the words that appeared most often and so was able to stay immersed in the story. Their relationship had become interesting, and her character’s conflict as she tried to decide what was true and right and trying to reconcile these new idea with her old beliefs had me really engaged.
We learn that Kaushika’s dispute with the other sages isn’t entirely due to their intransigence. While his motives and goal make sense, his actions could have dire consequences. Meneka finds herself caught between conflicting loyalties and, in resolving them, gains priceless insight into her own motives and actions.
In summary, I found the first third of the book hard to read, partly because I didn’t like Meneka and partly because unfamiliar words kept yanking me out of the story. I would give that part of the book one star. The second two thirds or so, however, drew me into the building, push/pull romance and Meneka’s inner conflicts. The action was superb, and so was the character development. That part of the story is a five. So I averaged them and came up with three.
Readers should be aware that the romantic storyline resolves but the external plot does not, at least not fully. The story presumably will continue in the next book.
Recommended.
3 Stars
~Nancy
Do unfamiliar words pull you out of a book?
How do you handle that? Do you stop to look up the word or just skip over them?
One person who posts a comment before 11:00 PM, February 20 will receive a hard copy of The Legend of Meneka.
*U.S. only
*Must be 18
