‘If you combed through enough fairy tales, untangled their roots, and shook out their branches, you would find that they are infested with oaths.’
The Last Tale of the Flower Bride combines the wonderful and gruesome nature of fairytales with the background of a mysterious childhood friendship.
The novel follows the story of Indigo Maxwell-Casteñada, a wealthy heiress, and her marriage to a scholar, who is asked to never pry into Indigo’s past. This peculiar request is accepted by the bridegroom, but the news of Indigo’s dying, estranged aunt makes this request harder to keep.
The events of the novel centre around the House of Dreams, a decadent mansion Indigo grew up in. The house is itself a character and seems to have otherworldly awareness of the people who are inside it. I also enjoyed the dual perspective of the bridegroom and Azure, Indigo’s childhood friend, because it linked the past with the present. The interwoven nature of the two characters experiences in the house provided necessary context for the novel to remain interesting. The consciousness of the house reminded me of The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern, and I enjoyed that everything described in the novel was needed to understand what happened to Azure.
The evolution of the power dynamics between Indigo and Azure was gripping. The characters came from opposing backgrounds and the house drew them together. At times, especially towards the end of the novel, the friendship developed into quite an unequal one as Azure realised that a life steeped in fantasy was not what she wanted. I found this interesting because it presented the reality of friendships changing as people get older and how they attempt to come to terms with it. Chokshi presents the desire to escape to a faerie world as the focal point of their friendship, and the novel constantly contrasts the controllable fairyland with the uncontrollable reality of the real world.
I enjoyed this novel very much and it is suitable for readers who are interested in murder mysteries and magic.
The Last Tale of the Flower Bride by Roshani Chokshi is available to buy in all good bookstores.