When it came to the characters, from the very beginning I appreciate MayaвЂ™s strength. вЂњFor instance, etiquette demands I tell you that you look lovely and compliment your demure. A dark, hooded intruder named Amar, ruler of Akaran, вЂњhelpsвЂќ to whisk her away from the path the Raja had envisaged for her, taking her to a kingdom entirely unlike anything she has experienced before, or so it seems. In order to hopefully appease rebel leaders and reunite his kingdom, the Raja offers up his daughterвЂ™s hand in marriage to suitors but everything isnвЂ™t as it seems and a much deadlier promise is lurking behind this arrangement, something that makes Maya plan to run away. We see the story through the first person perspective of Maya, daughter of the Raja of Bharata, a girl whose horoscope foretells bad fortune and (rumours say) death in her future вЂ“ itвЂ™s written in her stars, something which makes Maya curse the very stars themselves. вЂIt needs someone with fury in her heart and shadows in her smile.

I low-key have A Thing for Hades/Persephone retellings, partly due to Pinterest and partly because IвЂ™ve been imagining my own Hades/Persephone retelling, with Cate Blanchett as Hades, that I may very well write properly one day вЂ“ but I digress. A quick look into the book had me discovering something that gave me extraordinarily high hopes for the book: it was a Hades/Persephone retelling. Riding high on the wave of just how much I loved Roshani ChokshiвЂ™s The Gilded Wolves, I decided to pick up The Star-Touched Queen, a book I had vaguely heard about thanks to Booktube but I couldnвЂ™t remember why. 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.вЂњВ ( Synopsis from publisher) Soon, Maya suspects her life is in danger. DesireвЂ¦ But Akaran has its own secrets - thousands of locked doors, gardens of glass, and a tree that bears memories instead of fruit. As AmarвЂ™s wife, she finds something else entirely: Compassion.

Neither roles are what she expected: As AkaranвЂ™s queen, she finds her voice and power. Soon Maya becomes the queen of Akaran and wife of Amar. 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. With a horoscope that promises a marriage of Death and Destruction, she has earned only the scorn and fear of her fatherвЂ™s kingdom.

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