It is a retelling of an Hindu mythology of Narasimha avatar of lord Vishnu and his devotee Prahalad.
But the author has taken the characters from the story and presented them in a very humane way,with all the turmoils going on in the characters mind,the loses the suffer in the wars, speaking of wars the scenes are depicted in a very fascinating way,also introduction of topics like rape and nuclear power in the veil of mythology is done gracefully
The layout of the book is so intriguing,from the prologue to the epilogue and a map of Illavarti at the back and the cover capture the essence of the book perfectly, 4⭐/5 for me
Summary
The book opens with the prologue showing an attack on Kashyapuri, the capital from where Hiranyakashyap rules.Indra attacks the capital when the king is not there
Kayadhu- Hiranyakashyap’s wife-decides to take the responsibility & face the battle and inturn gets killed by Narasimha, who has his loyalty to Indra
(leaving behind her two very young sons Prahlad & Anuhrad)
Now the story leaps 14 years Narasimha now living as a physician in human colony. Prahlad & Anuhrad facing a battle against Jayant.
After the war,Hiranyakashyap meets both his son’s and guide them on their future duties.
Sending Anuhrad to help his cousin Andhaka to find the Pashupatastra,
he himself leaves for Yakshlok to help Vigyasa defeat Lord Agni & Prahlad is left as the Interim King.
On reaching Yakshlok, Hiranyakashyap search for the ultimate weapon-Brahmashastra and to get that,he has to get through the three trials in the Temple of Brahma
And the story moves ahead to find the answers to the fate of these multiple characters.
Without giving any spoilers,I can tell that the converging storylines looks promising to me
*What did not work for me?*
The only thing that did not work for me was the hazy timeline and some what of English hangover,like in a book where terms like ‘asuras’ and all mytho terms are used then why salutations like ‘my lady’ and people are roaming around in horses but they have ‘physicians’ instead of Vaidya, banks instead of ‘sahukars’,seemed odd to me.
drficticity 