Rating:

Be Careful What You Dream

Author: Roshani Chokshi

While A Crown of Wishes is ostensibly the sequel to The Star-Touched Queen, it is truly a separate tale. Maya and Amar and their deadly kingdom with its interwoven threads of fate; its sardonic, flesh-eating horses; and its tree of deception, are a backdrop, and their roles here are minimal. Instead, this is Maya’s sister’s, Gauri’s, story about her hard-won journey to freedom. While Maya’s prophecy leads her into the underworld, Gauri’s story takes her from princess to prisoner, awaiting her death sentence. Like her sister, though, Gauri has a certain toughness. When we start A Crown of Wishes, Gauri is already a warrior. She trusts no one and she is good with knives, betrayal, and war. Gauri is the kind of princess who kicks ass and takes names.

Meanwhile, we have Vikram, the fox prince. He’s supposed to kill Gauri, but he’s just a puppet prince, and he is tired of it. He wants his freedom. He’d like to make his name. He’s not so great with fighting and war, but he has a good mind, and some mythical entity has just made a pretty good deal with him. Travel to a magic city, meet the Lord of Wealth, and play in the Tournament of Wishes, which is half magic, half feats of intellect/wit, and he just might win the future he wants. The only twist (of course you knew there was one) is that he needs a companion to enter the tournament with him. Why not take his prisoner of war? Instead of killing her, he could use a fighter, and she could buy her freedom in this way. What could go wrong?

As you see, tying this story into a “series” is altogether wrong and leads immediately to disappointment. Maya and Amar show up only briefly, mere cameos. If you go in expecting more of their story, more of their world, you’re going to be disappointed. There is little interaction between Maya and her older sister, and their two stories stand apart. This story is also a love story, and it’s about magic and fate and romance and myth, but the similarity ends there. A Crown of Wishes should really be seen as a stand-alone.

Image by Jim Cramer from Pixabay

I’ve read three Roshani Chokshi books so far (The Last Tale of the Flower Bride, The Star Touched Queen, and this one) and A Crown of Wishes is my least favorite. The lyricism, the ability to imbue a world with lush beautify and magic, to conjure a certain sensuality in the descriptions and to evoke longing in the characters – physically and mentally – is still there, but the world is not quite as well crafted here. The tournament itself is a little questionable, and while magic is, of course, magical, it too needs some logic, some explanation.

Things start happening before we are settled with the characters and the world, and we’re pulled along before we have fully figured out what is going on and how the rules work. This leaves us spending an awful lot of time trying to figure out what is happening, why, and what is going on. How does this tournament work? What are the risks to our characters? What are the rewards? Why play? Why is everyone so invested? Can there be multiple winners? What is this focus on dreams and what does it mean? Is this real, not real? Some more groundwork was needed to take this from entertainment and to make it epic, which Chokshi certainly has the capability to do.  It’s not that the story necessarily needed to be longer – just more carefully set-up. The tournament was hazy, and I never really understand the risk/reward ratio or what was happening, to whom, or why.

What worked was the coolness of the world around Gauri and Vikrami. You have venomous courtesans (they are said to be “poisonous” which is another error, because something is only poisonous if you eat it – another error in overly rapid world building), weird fairy fruit that attaches to your hands, strange birds, and more. It’s all very cool, but we want to slow down and enjoy it, just as we spent time with Kamala in the first book and focused on her as a character, not just an exotic aside. There was so much potential here for more.

The romance aspect works out well, as the characters balance the faults in one another. Through Gauri, Vikram learns strength, and through Vikram, Gauri learns to take risks. It’s a nice compliment, and their sparring and sarcasm keeps the spark alive and readers interested.

Overall, I enjoyed this tale, but it is the weakest of Chokshi’s books that I have read so far. Still, even as a weaker story, there is so much potential and vision, lushness and love. I’ll continue to return for more, even though the magic is fading.

 

– Frances Carden

Follow my reviews on Twitter at: https://twitter.com/xombie_mistress

Follow my reviews on Facebook at: https://www.facebook.com/FrancesReviews

Frances Carden
Latest posts by Frances Carden (see all)