REVIEW OF 'SATAPUR MOONSTONE' BY SUJATA MASSEY

Hello Bookish sweethearts!🍁

BOOK REVIEW 🍁

 ‘Satapur Moonstone’ by Sujata Massey.🌻

I was intrigued to read ‘Satapur Moonstone’ after reading the blurb and critical appreciation. 

The setting is in British India(1922) The story starts with the protagonist Parveen, a practicing lawyer in Mumbai.  Parveen is working for kohalpur agency which oversees the affairs of princely states, now her task is to investigate about the education of a younger prince in the royal family of Satapur.

The story moves with the travel of Parveen to Satapur. Her task is to resolve the dispute between two maharanis that is the young prince’s mother and grandmother regarding his education.  The plot is weaved in rich description and imagery. Parveen confronts horrors in the palace of satapur and learns about elder maharani Putlabai’s another son who is scornful in his behaviour. The younger maharani Mirabhai is progressive in her thoughts unlike the others but she is in the state of Melancholia. 

Parveen also learns about the mysterious death of elder prince Pratap Rao who was mauled by leopard while going for hunting with his uncle.

 

The story is a perfect historical fiction but in the genre of mystery, it was not convincing for me for few significant reasons.

The author has sketched almost all the characters in negative shade except the two or three characters! If you are a sucker for mystery and thriller, then you might understand that how readers will always suspect positive characters, I could easily identify the antagonist despite of so many twists and turns in the story because of the character sketch.

 So, for the readers like me, who read a lot of mystery and thrillers, it might be an easy task for you to identify the antagonist, but this is still my opinion. I would recommend this book to all historical fiction lovers because of its refined language and splendid narration.

QOTD: Do you have any historical fiction recommendation?