Flower and Thorn by Rati Mehrotra You know how you feel after a really good meal? That feeling of satisfaction? Everything was perfect, or near to. Yeah, that’s how I felt after reading Rati Mehrotra’s new YA novel, Flower and Thorn. Now in order to understand the depth of that reaction, it’s also important to know I’m a really hard-to-please reader. I’m forever questioning research, analyzing character, world and plot development. In other words, I…
The Henna Artist by Alka Joshi My rating: 3 of 5 stars Joshi creates an interesting story about a young woman’s struggle to find a place in the restrictive and classist society of India. The author deals sensitively, and in the end devastingly, with herbal preventative contraception tisanes, the moral and societal landmines which explode in the heroine’s life, and the destruction of her livelihood which had been primarily as a henna artist of great…
His Majesty’s Dragon by Naomi Novik My rating: 5 of 5 stars Reader note: I’m reviewing the entire nine novels of the Temeraire series in this review. Such a surprise awaited when I flipped to the first page of His Majesty’s Dragon: Napoleonic naval adventures married seamlessly and believably to an aerial component via dragons. All disbelief suspended. Stunningly delightful. That surprise was further augmented by Novik’s impeccable research, the solidity of her character and…