Kaikeyi

Kaikeyi is the story of an infamous queen from the Indian epic tale the Ramayana. The author has taken the biggest villain of the epic and made her into a sympathetic character. It was just published in April 2022 and with 496 pages it is a chunky book. I bought the book at Barnes and Noble and enjoyed reading this hardcover as I held it. Holding a book seems like a blast from the past with all the ebooks around these days. 

The publisher's summary:

"I was born on the full moon under an auspicious constellation, the holiest of positions - much good it did me.

So begins Kaikeyi's story. The only daughter of the kingdom of Kekaya, she is raised on the tales of the gods: how they churned the vast ocean to obtain the nectar of immortality, how they vanquish evil and ensure the land of Bharat prospers, and how they offer powerful boons to the devout and the wise. Yet she watches as her father unceremoniously banishes her mother, listens as her own worth is reduced to how great a marriage alliance she can secure. And when she calls upon the gods for help, they never seem to hear her.

Desperate for some measure of independence, she turns to the texts she once read with her mother and discovers a magic that is hers alone. With this power, Kaikeyi transforms herself from an overlooked princess into a warrior, diplomat and most favored queen, determined to carve a better world for herself and the women around her.

But as the evil from her childhood stories threaten the cosmic order, the path she has forged clashes with the destiny the gods have chosen for her family. Kaikeyi must decide if resistance is worth the destruction it will wreak - and what legacy she intends to leave behind."

I haven't read many historical novels taking place in ancient India so this was a lovely departure from my usual reads. The pacing was what I expected from a historical fiction novel, as opposed to a historical mystery. It was just right. Because it is fiction, there is more emphasis on the Kaikeyi character than action. That said, there was still a good amount of action due to the main character's life story. 

The character was easy to like. She was a woman who helped other women and strove to enter a man's world. That's always a type of character that I will be drawn to. Her resilience was encouraging and inspirational; never let anyone get you down. Her use of magic is not something that I would typically want to read about. Kaikeyi always tried to get others to do her bidding by concentrating on the Binding Plane where she thought about the threads that bound her to other people. Her use of the binding place was integrated well into the story and seemed a normal part of the plot. However, she did not want anyone to know that she used magic. That would have had a negative impact on her life.

So how do you pronounce the name?  I believe it is "ki-kay." It may be my 2022 book of the year. I have only said that once this year so it will definitely be a top ten book. 5 out of 5 stars.

Book Cover of the Month: May

I love the happy colors of this book cover. The book is about the Mehra family in Mumbai but it is not a happy story. The main character is in the closet over his sexual orientation and has always been unhappy. The yellow and orange are good for depicting India fiction but The Other Man is not your typical Indian novel. In fact, I didn't like the book at all. It's about Ved Mehra who is still unmarried at age 38. He finally agrees to an arranged marriage with Disha Kapoor and their friendship blossoms during the wedding preparations. Soon thereafter Ved meets Carlos Silva and falls in love. The question posed by the author is whether or not Ved can come out of the closet.

Book of the Month: May

My best book for this month is, hands down, The Fugitive Colours. It's a sequel to The Blue, a novel about Genevieve Planche. After fleeing England for France, she met and married Thomas Sturbridge. Six years later they are back in Spitalfields for this installment of the series. It is 1764 and since men control the arts, sciences, politics and law, Genevieve is struggling to keep her silk design business afloat. Both Thomas and Genevieve are Huguenots, Protestants from Catholic France, which further makes them suspicious in the eyes of their associates in England. When Genevieve receives a surprise visit from an important artist, she begins to hope that, as a woman, she can be accepted as an artist. However, she soon learns that portrait painters have the world at their feet. Rivalries among them lead to sabotage, blackmail and murder and Genevieve gets caught up in their antics. She fears being exposed for her conspiracy and betrayal at the Derby Porcelain Factory several years back. The Blue novel is about that betrayal.

Blue Murder

Blue Murder is the second book in author Emma Jameson's Lord and Lady Hetheridge Mystery Series. It was interesting to learn that to "scream blue murder" is a British slang term for complaining in an angry way.  All of the books in the series have the word "blue" in the title and there are seven book in the series to date.

In Blue Murder two men were found dead at a Halloween party hosted by Emmeline Wardle, the teen daughter of a frozen food baron. Handsome Trevor Parsons was found with an axe in his head and computer nerd Clive French was also found dead in the garden of the home. Clive also had an axe in his head. Clive was not invited to the party but showed up anyway. Since all of the party goers, thirty nine, were children of the wealthy New Scotland Yard asked Chief Superintendent Anthony Hetheridge, ninth baron of Wellegrave, to investigate. His girlfriend, Detective Sergeant Kate Wakefield was also involved in the investigation as was her partner, Detective Sergeant Deepal "Paul" Bhar.

I really enjoyed this novel. In fact,  it was even better than Ice Blue. The dialogue between the police officers showed the closeness of their relationships with each other. The three of them work well together. I am not usually a fan of a police procedural but this cozy mystery hit the spot. The British flavor of the setting helped, even though many of the colloquiallisms  were very American. They still came off as British.

4 out of 5 stars.

Why Mermaids Sing

I loved this historical mystery set in 1811 London. It is the third book in the Sebastian St. Cyr series but the first one that I have read. In this installment of the series, murder stalks London's elite families as the sons of prominent families are found dead in public places. Their bodies have been mutilated with strange objects stuffed in their mouths.  Sebastian handles the investigation to find the killer alongside his sidekick, magistrate Henry Lovejoy.

Sebastian is a likable character. He is the only surviving son of the Earl of Hendon and will inherit the title some day.  His father is horrified that he is performing common work for the police force. He currently has the title of the Viscount Devlin. Sebastian served in the army as an intelligence specialist and the skills and contacts he obtained from his military service came in handy in this investigation. This background is a fabulous basis for a sleuth.  His girlfriend, Kat Boleyn, is a prostitute but he wants to marry her.  I am not sure how he came to fall in love with Kat. That information must be in the prior books in the series.  It didn't seem likely to me that he would fall for someone like Kat.

The writing was tight. There were alot of twists and turns in the plot and the author had me guessing what the outcome might be.  The whodunnit was surprising and I did not see it coming. I am excited to continue reading this series.  Author C. S. Harris is a new author for me and it's always awesome to find a new author that I love.

5 out of 5 stars.

The Candid Life of Meena Dave

I almost always love a novel about India and Indian Americans. The Candid Life of Meena Dave is the exception though. I could not become interested in the book at all. Meena Dave has no family to speak of.  Her adoptive parents have passed away and she is on her own, moving frequently. When she is notified that she has inherited a house in Boston, she cannot place the name of the person, Neha, who left it to her. However, she travels to Boston, gets the keys to the house and plans only to stay overnight there. She is required to not sell the home for one year and then only to one of the other people who also have title to the property. While Meena is staying in the home, she discovers a connection to her past.  

While the plot premise was good, I struggled to maintain interest in the story. I found the writing to be rambling in various directions. Another fatal part of the book is that I did not like the main character Meena. She traveled the world on her whims and looked down on people with roots. She spoke to other characters with disdain. Meena just isn't a friendly person. Around page 50, I decided to go online and see what other reviewers thought about the book. I read many glowing  reviews so I went back to the beginning and started over, thinking I was missing something. I wasn't. 

I didn't finish this novel and cannot even rate it 1 star. Not my cup of tea. 

The Other Man

I had high hopes for The Other Man given it's gorgeous cover. However,  I never engaged with the story. It seemed that I was reading about Ved Mehra's day as he might write about it in a mundane way in a journal. His days were boring. The plot concerns his mother's attempts to get him married. As a 38 year old single man, Ved finally agrees to an arranged marriage with Disha Kapoor. While the wedding preparations are underway Ved meets Carlos Silva and begins an affair with him. The thrust of the novel is whether Ved has the strength tell his parents that he is gay and live openly in Bombay as a gay man.

As the plot moves on the reader learns how Ved became a closeted gay man. This is an interesting part of the plot as is his blossoming friendship with Disha. It is hard to tell which way Ved will ultimately go and it is all complicated because he is the heir to a big family business. Also, there is some sexual description but not alot.

This one left me bored. No rating.

Chef's Kiss

Chef's Kiss is a coming-of-age graphic novel about a college graduate who majored in English. Ben Cook could not find a job in his chosen field. He applied for jobs as a copyrighter, journalist and proofreader but because he had no job experience, no one would hire him. One day he passes by a restaurant and sees a help wanted sign. Ben decides to apply. After all, he is a gourmet cook at home. However, the restaurant owner requires a series of tests before hiring Ben permanently. With sous chef Liam's help, Ben begins his culinary journey.

Right off the bat I could tell the dialogue between the characters was true to life. It's what you would look for in a novel and it helped to depict the characters and their relationships. There was alot of small talk between them but it was relevant to character development. I got to know each character by the way they spoke, the words they used. There was no exposition. The back story of the expectation of Ben's parents for him was all told in dialogue. 

Chef's Kiss is filled with humor. The taste tester at the restaurant is the owner's pet pig. The back story on how Chef Davis met the pig was fantastical but made me laugh. Ben's crush on Liam is a major component of the story so if you don't like queer YA stories, you will want to skip this one.

5 out of 5 stars.

Can't Wait Wednesday #11

This week I found out that graphic novelist Nick Drnaso's newest novel Acting Class will be published on August 16, 2022. I am anxiously awaiting its publication. Drnaso is a graduate of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago where I studied and within a year of graduating he had huge success with the publication of his graphic novel Beverly. He followed up in 2018 with Sabrina. 

Acting Class follows ten strangers who meet at a free acting class in a community center. The teacher, John Smith, is a mysterious and morally questionable figure. This group of social misfits and restless searchers have one thing in common: they are out of step with their surroundings and desperate for change.  The group includes a husband and wife, four years into their marriage and simmering in boredom, a single mother, her young son showing disturbing signs of mental instability, a peculiar woman with few if any friends and only her menial job keeping her grounded, a figure model, comfortable in his body and ready for a creative challenge, a worried grandmother and her adult granddaughter, a hulking laborer and gym nut, a physical therapist and an ex-con. The class sinks deeper into their lessons as the process demands increasing devotion. When the line between real life and imagination begins to blur, the group’s deepest fears and desires are laid bare. 

The wide variety of characters alone gives the author many interesting ways to approach the plot. I look forward to finding out where he takes the story.

In A Kingdom By The Sea

This historical novel is a slow moving story concerning an English wife and mother named Gabriella/Gabby.  Her 2 kids are in college and her husband Mike has worked in foreign countries their entire married life. Near their 25th anniversary, Mike asks Gabby to join him in Karachi, Pakistan where he will begin a job in the airline industry. As a book translator Gabby can work anywhere in the world and email her work to her employer. She decides to go to Karachi. I thought this was a wrong decision but I guess Gabby was trying to connect with Mike who she has only seen on summer holidays. 

When Gabby arrives in Karachi she is both shocked and amazed at the noise of the city and the cultural divide between the sexes. However, she needed a new experience in her life and Gabby quickly accepted the country as is. Her openness to the culture gains her several new female friends. Gabby finds that that she is closer to these women emotionally than she was to her friends in England. 

The story alternates between the present day Pakistan and the 1970s Cornwall where Gabby grew up with sister Dominique. Dominque holds a family secret that is revealed midway into the story. This reveal has no bearing on the main plot and the alternating plot was unnecessary. The book is about Gabby growing as a person and this childhood story has no effect on the present day story. Dominique was a fantastic character and could have been used in the plot differently. 

There isn't much action. The book is about Gabby's growth as a person. I found this appealing though. 3 out of 5 stars.

Cold Iron #1

Cold Iron is a 5 part comic by Andy Diggle. While the copyright is from 2020, Issue 1 was just released as a Comixology Original in May. Next week Issue 2 will be released. Cold Iron is a supernatural thriller that takes place on the Isle of Man. Steeped in Celtic myth, Viking history and Faerie folklore, the island is nestled in the Irish Sea midway between England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales. However, to aspiring singer-songwriter Kay Farragher, it feels a million miles from anywhere. She dreams of escaping the humdrum life of a sleepy backwater, and gives no credence to her grandmother’s old folktales and odd superstitions. But when she saves Mona, a traumatized girl lost in the night of Hop-tu-Naa, Kay quickly realizes this is no mere Halloween prank gone wrong. In the mossy glens and rainswept valleys of the island, the shadows of a forgotten past are gathering once more. There is another world, an older world, close by our own but out of reach. On this night the walls grow thin, and someone, or something,  has clawed its way through and it is here to hunt.

The story has a lovely British flavor with slang terms and a British accent here and there in the dialogue. The setting is dominate in this installment of the series.  We see neolithic burial sites, Celtic stone circles and Viking castles. The use of Celtic folklore creates a specific mood for the island and sets up the plot. All of the characters were introduced and they are fully developed in the comic's short 27 pages.  The author did a great job of setting up the story that will follow. 

5 out of 5 stars.

Stacking the Shelves #16

This week on Stacking the Shelves I want to highlight a chunky book that I bought last week at Barnes and Noble. Vaishnavi Patel's Keikeyi is a novel that shines a light on the vilified queen of the Ramayana. The author expands on her story with this fiction novel. Kaikeyi is the only daughter of the kingdom of Kekaya and she was raised on the tales of the gods: how they churned the vast ocean to obtain immortality, how they vanquish evil and ensure the land of Bharat prospers, and how they offer powerful boons to the worthy.  Kaikeyi is devastated when her father banishes her mother and then as he values her only for her marital prospects to the family. She begins to elicit the help of the gods  in order to bring back her mother, but it does not work. Kaikeyi turns to the scrolls that she once read with her mother and discovers that she has a magic she can harness from the gods. With this power, she begins to transform herself into a warrior, diplomat and a queen.  

I love the feel of holding big books. It is so much better than reading online and enhances my reading experience. Kaikeyi is 478 pages long, too short in my opinion. After reading Edward Rutherford's 1,100 page historical fiction novels of major cities of the world, Kaikeyi is definitely a short book. When I first picked up the book from the store shelves, I thought that it was a story about an African queen.  However, closer inspection of the book cover revealed that the queen on the cover was wearing tradition Indian wedding garb. I feel stupid that I thought Kaikeyi was from Africa just because her face is in silhouette on the cover. 

I have already begun reading the book but am only on page 59. The story has captivated me and I look forward to finish reading it.

Red Tag

I have read Issues 1 through 3 of Rafael Scavone's Red Tag comic. He co-wrote the comic with Rafael Albuquerque and Roger Cruz. Issue 4 will be  released tomorrow and issue 5, the final issue for Season One, will be released next month. It was a captivating story about three friends searching for justice on the streets of Sao Paulo, Brazil. Lis, Lu and Leco are street artists and they bonded over their love for Brazil's unique street art called "pixo" which is a Sao Paulo fixture. After discovering that dangerous people, holdovers from Brazil's brutal dictatorial past, are plotting against the reform movement in Sao Paulo, the three of them gain the attention of these people and their lives become endangered. Afraid that one of the reformer's life is in danger, overnight they spray paint warnings to him in pixo on Sao Paulo's buildings. 

This is a fast paced thriller with appealing characters.  I especially loved the villain - Noronha.  He is a military policeman who works undercover and earns money by extortion. The drawings of his facial expressions were amusing. The plot itself could take place anywhere on the planet, not just in Brazil. Youths from many countries are protesting against corruption wherever they see it. In this respect, the story is timely.

I loved this comic and plan on reading the 2 future installments of the series.  5 out of 5 stars.