The Heartless Divine

I've wanted to read this book for quite a long time now, but I only bought it recently when I realized the sequel was coming out next year. I had only heard great things about this before from my dear friends, and it's so rare to find a South Indian inspired (in this case specifically Tamil Nadu) fantasy novel that I knew I had to give this a try.

However, I don't know if I am having a bit of a bad luck lately because I seem to not be loving all my reads. Which is ofcourse always possible because I can't always be reading 4 and 5 star books but I guess I've been spoiled for most of this year with absolutely wonderful books. That's not to say this book was bad. The prose is actually quite beautiful and the author does a lovely job telling both a historical and contemporary story in the same book. It is told in two alternate timelines, or in other words, two different lifetimes of the same characters. The current timeline is where I completely lost my interest.

I found the beginning itself to be very abrupt and then I couldn't fathom why the characters started feeling so deeply for each other, especially Suri because Kiran atleast had a reason to feel the love. The past timeline was definitely more interesting with Suri having to travel to an enemy kingdom and get acclimated to the land and it's people while also harboring a dangerous secret. I liked her character who has been brought up with violence as her creed but probably wants something different if she could choose. Kiran too is fascinating because he is neither completely human nor a god, and living a haunted life due to being able to see the visions of the future have made him seem much more guarded and dispassionate. While I enjoyed their relationship dynamic, I just found it not so plausible because she is technically betrothed to the king. And the other unbelievable part was that she hardly has any interactions with Viro, and none of them ever to alluding to the fact that they probably are supposed to be married someday. I probably liked Tarak the best of the lot but we see quite little of him. The mystery of who is betraying the kingdom is also pretty easy to guess but there are only a couple of choices, and why of it didn't seem convincing enough.

But overall, it wasn't something I couldn't get through. The lovely prose and the historical timeline hold enough water that it kept me going and I wanted to know how the subplot would end. But I really would have skipped the present timeline if I felt I could. Maybe it would have worked better for me if the two timelines were in separate books, but many others have enjoyed this book so I guess it's just my personal preference. And now I am unsure if I wanna continue with the sequel. Let's see what I will decide in the future.