The Last Tale of the Flower Bride - Roshani Chokshi - ★★

AUTHOR: Roshani Chokshi

GENRE: Dark Romance, Gothic Fantasy.

RATING: 2 stars.

In a Nutshell: Disappointed! There’s a plot in here somewhere, but it’s tough to locate it amid the extensive purple prose. Liked a few of the writing flourishes, but not the book.

Story Synopsis:

A few years ago, an unnamed man married Indigo Maxwell-Casteñada, a beautiful, wealthy and mysterious woman. Theirs was a quick relationship, with Indigo readily giving him her love on just one condition – that he never pry into her past.

When Indigo learns that her estranged aunt is on her deathbed, the couple rush to her childhood home, known as the House of Dreams. Within this huge mansion lie plenty of secrets, and the man finds himself unable to resist the urge to know the secrets of his bride. Will his curiosity end up destroying his marriage, or his own life?

The story comes to us in the first person perspective of two characters, one of whom is the unnamed man who is referred to as ‘The Bridegroom’.

Where the book worked for me:

😍 The author has a wonderful knowledge of fairy tales and lore, and her vocabulary is excellent.

😍 The book represents toxic friendship quite well. This doesn’t make the characters easy to like, but their motives comes out decently.

😍 The cover is a treat to the eyes! (Both covers actually: I couldn’t decide which cover I liked better: the US edition or the UK one.)

Where the book left me with mixed feelings:

😐 As a Gothic novel, the book needed to have an intriguing house, and it scores high on atmosphere with the House of Dreams, and even the Otherworld. Unfortunately, the house is used more like a background prop than as a character unto itself. It is personified but not utilised to its potential. What was the point of it? (The House kept reminding me of the delightful house from Keeper of Enchanted Rooms. How I missed the same effect! This one felt forced in comparison.)

😐 The writing is quite beautiful. Many lines were striking. However, the ornateness of the flowery text bogs down the story as well as the pacing. There’s no balance between the two crucial elements of plot and prose.

😐 There is plenty of foreshadowing in the woman’s pov, which works at times but also irritates an equal number of times.

😐 The big reveal is easy to spot if you are paying attention. It is hinted at regularly. The ending was good, but as I had seen it coming, it was not as impactful for me as it could have been.

Where the book could have worked better for me:

😒 The plot begins with the idea that the bridegroom met Indigo when he was searching for a 13th century grimoire. The grimoire isn’t mentioned at all after the first chapter! Did he just forget about it?

😒 The couple meet, get attracted to each other, and marry within the first couple of chapters. This is one of the most rushed “romances” I have seen in fiction, especially as we don’t even know what X-factor brings the two of them together except that each finds the other attractive.

😒 Of the two character perspectives, the author was clearly more invested in one and the other served only as the handrail through which the preferred plot progressed upwards.

😒 The two first-person narratives don’t do the book any favour. The voice of both characters sounds the same, despite the difference in gender. At times, I even lost track of whether the bridegroom was speaking or the other character. (On a related note: the bridegroom’s pov is infused with so many emotions that it is tough to remember that we are hearing a man’s voice.)

😒 The writing is very slow (mainly because of the frivolous embellishments) and I had to force myself to continue. My head refused to co-operate and kept wandering outside the realms of the plot.

😒 Characters are exotic for the sake of it. We read a little about their different skin colour or their appearance, but their actual ethnic origin is never revealed. It's so tough to visualise characters when they are written like this.

😒 The author has a fondness for certain words and they pop up in the narrative time and again. This needn’t be a big word. Even something as simple as ‘lips’ gets a regular appearance.

(Quick Question: How many times can I tolerate characters rubbing their thumbs over another’s lips?

Answer: Zero.)

😒 There are plenty of references to fae elements in the plot, but we never know whether they were actual or just in the imagination of the characters. Quite a lot is left unsaid.

I had expected far more from this author because I have heard so much about her Aru Shah series, though I haven’t read her works yet. This is her debut adult fiction, so I am unsure if this had her typical writing style, or if she goofed up in her writing methodology in a quest to cater to her adult audience. Either way, I might still try her works in future, but will restrict myself to the children’s fantasy titles.

This one gets a no-no from me. However, if you are the kind of reader who loves lush prose even at the cost of a coherent plot, you will certainly want to give this a try. I hope you do. A majority of readers did love it. Will work if you are looking for a dark romance or a gothic fantasy. Won’t work as a mystery-thriller, as some readers have erroneously tagged it.

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.