I looked around the room, a strange tingling worked its way up from the base of my skull. Even before I reached for the glass on the right, I imagined that magic liquid gilding my tongue. The whiskey tasted like a hot knife, burnt and metallic, with a cinnamon aftertaste. It never occurred to me this might be only a game. My thanks to Hodder & Stoughton and NetGalley for the DRC of “The Last Tale of the Flower Bride”. This review is voluntary and contains my honest opinion about the book. Sorry this worked out so poorly. We make a lot of space for monstrous adult women. But when it comes to fiction and … playing with teenage years, I don't see quite as much space for it … Writing ‘Flower Bride’ was rather cathartic. I’ve always liked fairytales and myths because they either seek to explain the world around them or offer no explanation for the magic that might at times be cruel and other times kind. That kind of callous randomness is almost comforting. It says “It’s nothing personal. It’s just, well, life.” Other times it suggests that such awfulness is outside our mortal scope of understanding and that’s also fine.

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. Content notes include abusive relationships, inappropriate advances, being drugged, abandonment, grief.

The Last Tale of the Flower Bride

I think there is a lot to Indigo we don’t know and we may never know. The separation of current life and past really creates a mystery to her and the feeling that she may not be honest. of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars The Last Tale of the Flower Bride by Roshani Chokshi What follows is a story about their friendship and growing up. They want to be with the fae, they believe they are meant to be more than what this world has to offer and Indigo knows without a doubt that they will transcend on the eighteenth birthday. As time passes, Azure no longer wants to be a shadow to Indigo. She wants her own life and Indigo is very much willing to punish her to be herself. I rooted for Azure the whole time. Indigo could have been a great friend but she was missing empathy. She put Azure in danger so many times, like pushing her to the edge of the cliff and holding by the shirt so she won’t fall but still letting her come so close to the end. Their relationship, in many ways, represents the tension of growing up. It's the desire to stay young enough, stay innocent enough, that fairyland and fairy world makes itself known to you. Like in an age at which magic is not just a possibility, but it is real. And then the tension of growing up and essentially realizing that the other world is now closed to you.”

Our heartbeats shared the same rhythm. It said: Here is the dialect of the living and I am living alongside you. It said: I know this, too, and I can share it with you.”I really appreciated this book’s lush gothic atmosphere that’s both dark and mysterious without the use of gore. I also tend to like gothic books where the house that feels “alive” plays a part in the characters’ lives. The Last Tale might well be Roshani’s first adult novel, but if it’s anything to go by, she’s found a new corner of the market to take over.” It’s time to hear from the mystery woman herself, Azure is narrating now. She tells us that she loved Indigo, tells us how they met, but she also tells us she belonged to Indigo. A circle is a fixed infinity. Even the way it looks when it’s held up to the light is curious, as if it’s a portal to some place of mystery and your choice to wear it means you’ve allowed your marriage to be a threshold to the unknown. And yet, even in the unknown, there is a demand of mutual trust.” Azure later realizes that Indigo was not an escape for her, but someone she needed to escape from. The controlling elements of different worlds and one girl’s coming-of-age discovery are intertwined, which truly induces the mystic nature of Chokshi’s writing. Indigo is beautiful, and so is the way Chokshi grants the reader the ability to see what’s going on just before the bridegroom does. There doesn’t seem to be a point where the story loses focus, as it always appears to have the grand plan in mind.