by Roshani Chokshi

“My kingdom needs a queen. It needs someone with fury in her heart and shadows in her smile. It needs someone restless and clever. It needs you.” 
“You know nothing about me.” 
“I know your soul. Everything else is an ornament.”
-Page 68

Title: The Star-Touched Queen
Author: by Roshani Chokshi 
Publisher: St. Martin’s Griffin
Book: Standalone/book 1
Genre: ‘Oriental’ Fantasy/Myth retelling??
Rating: 4 Voodoos

Fate and fortune. Power and passion. What does it take to be the queen of a kingdom when you’re only seventeen?

Maya is cursed. With a horoscope that promises a marriage of death and destruction, she has earned only the scorn and fear of her father’s kingdom. Content to follow more scholarly pursuits, her whole world is torn apart when her father, the Raja, arranges a wedding of political convenience to quell outside rebellions. Soon Maya becomes the queen of Akaran and wife of Amar. Neither roles are what she expected: As Akaran’s queen, she finds her voice and power. As Amar’s wife, she finds something else entirely: Compassion. Protection. Desire…

But Akaran has its own secrets—thousands of locked doors, gardens of glass, and a tree that bears memories instead of fruit. Soon, Maya suspects her life is in danger. Yet who, besides her husband, can she trust? With the fate of the human and Otherworldly realms hanging in the balance, Maya must unravel an ancient mystery that spans reincarnated lives to save those she loves the most…including herself.

-Netgalley

My original review can be found HERE.

I wasn’t going to re-read this book before reading The Crown of Wishes, but I quickly discovered that I really needed to. The Crown of Wishes is a companion book but in makes many references to this one. It involves Maya’s sister Gauri and references several things that happened in this book which I really couldn’t remember.
I DID remember being terribly mad at Maya while reading this book. I wasn’t as mad at her this time, I knew what she was up against after all! Obviously I paid more attention to Gauri and what she was getting up to and though I was mainly reading to catch myself up, I did keep getting sucked back in. There were a few areas where things weren’t that well explained and I think that they’re covered in the second book – and there’s a prequel novella coming soon too which I think will cover all the rest. I’m not sure if they were accidentally missed or if they were edited out, but I appreciate that they’re subsequently covered.

I know nothing of Indian mythology. My previous attempts to discover myths has either resulted in the ‘Essays of an advanced scholar on the subject of this myth’ books OR the ‘This is all about the people from this myth! Pull this tab and he laughs!” books and I’ve sort of given up. Where are all the books with the ACTUAL stories?!?! Greek, Egyptian, Indian, Celtic, I want to read them all! (I got side tracked, BUT if you know of any good mythology books, please let me know!)

I think I enjoyed this book far more the second time around. I wasn’t as angry at Maya and I noticed little things that I missed before. I knew what was going on so I could spot the foreshadowing and the tiny hints (I love it when you spot things in a re-read that meant nothing the first time!) and I liked spending some time in a culture so different from my own.
I’ll leave you with this though; as a friend pointed out to me, what was up with her shadow?!