Table of Contents
Preamble
This book was a preorder. I saw it on a booktuber’s (I don’t remember who) most anticipated books of 2025 list and thought the premise was interesting. I like to read fantasies that use non-Western mythologies so this looked to be right along my alley.
Let’s get into it.
The Book
The hardest books to review are the ones that are neither good or bad. This book is one of those, it is just….fine. I didn’t feel particularly invested in any of the characters, the romance or even the mythology. It felt like the narrative glue that keeps a romantasy enjoyable just wasn’t there.
Starting with the titular main character Meneka – I simply wasn’t particularly invested in her inner struggles between her devotion to Indra and her blooming romance with the other main character, the sage Kaushika. Kaushika for a good chunk of the book is an aloof asshole, just not really a particularly interesting as a love interest for me. None of the minor characters are interesting either, they are mostly here to serve Meneka’s plot line.
The mythology is the most interesting aspect of this book, I enjoyed learning about various concepts and characters from Hindu mythology – Rishi, Indra, Agni, Halahala, Svarga, and Airavata etc. There is plenty of name dropping. The magic system is based on Hindu mythology and was at least to me mostly unremarkable. This isn’t the fantasy for you if you want an intricate complex magic system.
As far as the romance part of this romantasy goes, like the rest of the book, it doesn’t come together for me. There were moments of intense yearning and sensuality followed by smut scenes that mostly bored me. That I don’t think is the book’s fault, I just don’t enjoy reading smut scenes in romance novels especially when I am not feeling any strong feelings about the romantic relationship between these two characters.
Conclusions
Romantasy seems to be a hit and miss genre for me, and its been misses for a while now. The last time I really enjoyed a romantasy was The Phoenix Keeper by S.A MacLean and I have been chasing that particular high ever with other romantasy books ever since. Unfortunately none have come close yet.
All the elements of what could be a good romantasy novel are there but none of it comes together in a way that keeps me interested in the world, its characters and their dynamics. I am a very character motivated reader when it comes to fiction and if I don’t care about the characters in your book, I’ll have a much harder time enjoying your book.
I’ll damn this book with faint praise – it is better than Heavenly Tyrant. That book set a new low bar for bad books for me so whenever I get a book like this which is not particularly good or bad, I’ll give it the “Better than Heavenly Tyrant” award.
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