Summary: 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. (Summary and pic from goodreads.com)
My Review: I feel like I’ve been into the gothic romantic fantasy genre of late. There are a lot of books being published like that now, and I think it’s a fun genre. It’s like normal fantasy took a little jaunt backward into historical fiction vibes, and even though this book wasn’t a historical fiction, it definitely had that old timey feel. In fact, the whole time I was reading it I was thinking that it reminded me of du Maurier’s Rebecca. I’ve read many different iterations of the actual story of Rebecca, and I’ve even seen some modern takes on it that I’ve enjoyed. This book isn’t like Rebecca in that the story is the same, but there are elements of it that had the same vibe as that book. There is mystery surrounding a great family house, and people being enigmas of varying extents, and love that is passionate and dangerous despite all of this. It had that same sumptuous quality of Rebecca, and so I’m saying right now if you enjoyed that book you should definitely check this one out because it niggles that same part of the brain.
This is a strange and mysterious little story, and it is told as such. It is told from two different perspectives, “The Bridegroom” and “Azure.” I enjoyed this because the voices were very different and fit the characters well. Their way of storytelling and view of events was very much like I imagined the characters would tell it. Plus, and this is always a bonus to me, the chapters were clearly marked whose story it was by having “The Bridegroom” or “Azure” at the top so that I could keep track. I don’t like to be guessing, people. I don’t want to be confused. Just spell it out for me.
This story is pretty wild in a lot of ways. First of all, the main female protagonist, Indigo, is pretty much a psychopath and does all kinds of things to the people around her that convince the reader of that. Her relationships are pretty toxic, and at times it was almost cringey the things she would do and people would let her get away with. I get that some of these things came from unreliable narrators, but still. Toxic people are often hard to read about when you see them actively trying to destroy others’ lives. In true Toxic person manner, she tries to do just that, and we, the lucky readers, get to come along and witness it all. I’ll leave it to you to decide whether that is good or bad.
I enjoyed this book in a lot of ways. The storytelling was intricate and totally consistently stylized, which made for a cool reading experience, and something different than just the norm. It definitely had a gothic horror vibe to it, which is always fun. Plus, there’s a crazy old house that won’t let the story go without giving its pound of flesh and I always do love a good haunted house. There are some other cool Place characters that are in here, too, but I’ll leave them up to the reader to discover.
Even though this book had a lot of things going for it, I’m only giving it a 3.5 instead of a 4. In order to get a 4, I feel like this story would have needed to not have some of the unbelievable elements in it. Yes, I liked the creepy house, but sometimes the shenanigans Indigo pulls are a bit much, even for a gothic horror novel. Plus, she’s just such a nutcase in so many ways that I have a hard time believing she got away with it for so long and from so many people. But, alas, I’m boring and practical and so someone with more whimsy and less dogged realistic feelings about these kinds of things probably would have been able to be a little more dismissive of these more unbelievable things.
My Rating: 3.5 Stars
For the sensitive reader: There is language, some light violence, and some sex. I would say it if were a movie I’d rate it PG-13.
