Hey all, Sam here.
Sorry for the later post today…I got sort of distracted with errands and such. But David and I managed to buy some props and such for a 3D print photo shoot. We’re going to try and take a whole bunch of photos tomorrow, so you should see those start showing up on David’s Instagram (@freestateofgeek) over the next week or so, which will be really cool.
Oh, and we’re going to be helping our friend Sarah with her booth at Fan Expo Cleveland next month, so that’ll be fun. I’ll share more information about that as we learn more.
Anyway, I managed some reading today, but not as much as I was hoping to. Our cats decided that they didn’t want me to be able to get a full night’s rest, so I’ve just felt tired most of the day. Oh well, David’s weekend continues tomorrow, so there’s still time to accomplish the reading I’m hoping to.
All right, let’s go ahead and jump into today’s review.
To learn what she can become, she must first discover who she is.
Katyani’s role in the kingdom of Chandela has always been clear: becoming an advisor and protector of the crown prince, Ayan, when he ascends to the throne. Bound to the Queen of Chandela through a forbidden soul bond that saved her when she was a child, Katyani has grown up in the royal family and become the best guardswoman the Garuda has ever seen. But when a series of assassination attempts threatens the royals, Katyani is shipped off to the gurukul of the famous Acharya Mahavir as an escort to Ayan and his cousin, Bhairav, to protect them as they hone the skills needed to be the next leaders of the kingdom. Nothing could annoy Katyani more than being stuck in a monastic school in the middle of a forest, except her run-ins with Daksh, the Acharya’s son, who can’t stop going on about the rules and whose gaze makes her feel like he can see into her soul.
But when Katyani and the princes are hurriedly summoned back to Chandela before their training is complete, tragedy strikes and Katyani is torn from the only life she has ever known. Alone and betrayed in a land infested by monsters, Katyani must find answers from her past to save all she loves and forge her own destiny. Bonds can be broken, but debts must be repaid.
My Thoughts
Rating: 4 stars
I read this book in one sitting, on the road home from a convention, back in October 2022. So, I have a difficult time sleeping in certain moving vehicles, and apparently a cargo van is one of those vehicles I can’t sleep in…so on those long trips across the country week after week, I would either watch things with my vehicle mates (we’d play stuff through apps on our phones), or I’d try to read.
This was one of the e-ARCs I selected and read through the evening into the night as we made our way to our hotel stop for that particular night.
I have to say, this book kept me guessing a little bit. Just when I thought I knew who I could trust, who Katyani could trust, more information would get revealed and it would change everything. The statement “bonds can be broken” from the summary was definitely true in this case. This book was definitely one with a strong character focus. It had its moments of intrigue and such, which was great, wondering who was on whose side, who desired what goals and achievements, and who could be trusted or believed.
It made for a wild ride.
I think I rated this down to 4 stars because it did take a little while for the intrigue to really start to settle in, and for the ball to really get rolling on the “meat” and action of the plot. There was a lot of time spent building up the characters and the world and the relationships and the bits of magic.
Like I said, I followed Katyani and the princes and Saksh and everyone else through this story, finishing it within just a few hours, so it wasn’t a book that dragged too much overall. I would have liked a little more expansion on the romance subplot, but overall this was a pretty solid story. I’m definitely going to have to keep an eye out for future books by Rati Mehrotra.
This book was released in October 2022, so you can read it for yourself now.
That is all from me for today. Thank you so much for stopping by, and we’ll be back soon with more geeky content.
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