Finally managing to finish one of my many on the go books.
The Last Tale of the Flower Bride
Roshani Chokshi
A sumptuous, gothic-infused story about a marriage that is unraveled by dark secrets, a friendship cursed to end in tragedy, and the danger of believing in fairy tales—the breathtaking adult debut from New York Times bestselling author Roshani Chokshi.
Once upon a time, a man who believed in fairy tales married a beautiful, mysterious woman named Indigo Maxwell-Casteñada. He was a scholar of myths. She was heiress to a fortune. They exchanged gifts and stories and believed they would live happily ever after—and in exchange for her love, Indigo extracted a promise: that her bridegroom would never pry into her past.
But when Indigo learns that her estranged aunt is dying and the couple is forced to return to her childhood home, the House of Dreams, the bridegroom will soon find himself unable to resist. For within the crumbling manor’s extravagant rooms and musty halls, there lurks the shadow of another girl: Azure, Indigo’s dearest childhood friend who suddenly disappeared. As the house slowly reveals his wife’s secrets, the bridegroom will be forced to choose between reality and fantasy, even if doing so threatens to destroy their marriage . . . or their lives.
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This is a tough book to write about and I’m not sure if I can accurately describe how I feel about it. If my rating was for atmosphere alone then it would get top marks, the writing is beautiful, it creates a wonderful mystical ambience, however it is my enjoyment of the plot that just wasn’t where I expected it to be.
The story is told in a dual POV one from Indigo’s husband named only the Bridegroom and Azure, Indigo’s friend. I did very much enjoy the beginning of the book, the mystery surrounding Indigo and her relationship with her husband that started with riddles and fairytales, which I loved and were weaved throughout the story. He does very quickly take a bit of a side step though as the story starts to concentrate on Indigo’s past through the eyes of Azure.
This is where the pace started to slow almost too much for me, the story languishes at points to accommodate the intricate wording that it is embellished with. This works well to create and maintain the atmosphere of the story but does detract from the plot and I did find at times my concentration was waning.
Even with the exquisite setting of the House of Dreams and the Otherworld, a vast and unusual playground for Indigo and Azure to spend their time in, it was on occasion so enigmatic that it became confusing and lost substance. Part of me thinks that is maybe on purpose as in the story things can appear magical and not at the same time. This is the kind of story where you have to draw your own conclusions on whether there was magic or whether it was just Indigo and Azure powering it with their beliefs.
I won’t say too much about the characters because these relationships are ones you want to discover for yourself, but they are very well written and did manage to play on my emotions. That is what kept me reading and pulling me back into the story was the relationships and how they evolved and managed to surprise me.
The Last Tale of the Flower Bride is a confusing but beautiful book, and I’m still not sure how I feel about it but I appreciate the complexities of the story, so I would still be keen to read other books by this author.
everywhere-and-nowhere.com 