The Palace of Illusions

"She who sows vengeance must reap its bloody fruit."

I don’t read much Indian fiction. I think to date, I’ve only read two of this author’s previous works, The Forest of Enchantments and Independence. I mostly enjoyed both of those with some caveats, and I think this one was no exception. I can’t say I know the source material at all, and from a quick glance at the reviews, I can see the low reviews come from a place of not liking aspects of the retelling. I only mention this to say that I don’t know the retelling at all, and I thought this was an enjoyable, flawed story.

Panchaali was born with a destiny to change the course of history. The daughter of King Draupad, she struggles with impatience born from being forced into a female role she doesn’t want to play. Forced to marry five brothers (at once!) instead of her heart’s desire by her family and her friends, she struggles to please her new family while coming to terms with her new lot in life. But even after she (reluctantly) throws herself into married life, she must endure loss after heartbreak after grief as she gains things she loves with all her being and then loses them again.

Panchaali was an interesting character, though I preferred the first half of the book as she figures herself out while growing up more than the second half of the book. Character/ending spoilers: I didn’t much care for the bent-on-vengeance change to Panchaali for losing her house (I know that’s reductive), but because this is a retelling of some very old source material and somewhat key to her story, I understand it’s not really something that can be changed. I did think the author hit the foreshadowing button a bit too much; the ending twist regarding Karna was something I saw coming.

The writing style was fantastic though. The scenes are painted with care and detail, and I loved picturing the places the author takes us to. There’s also references to (what I’m assuming are) other stories within the source material concerning other characters, and I found myself falling down more than a few Wikipedia holes looking these references up. The action near the end does feel a little choppy as well, though. It seems like we fly past key events with just a mention of what happened in intervening years, but I’m not sure if that’s a source material thing or an author thing.

This was an enjoyable fiction read from a country I don’t read too much from. Highly recommend to anyone looking for something new in the historical fiction (fantasy?) genre.