The Last Tale of the Flower Bride by Roshani Chokshi
A sumptuous, gothic-infused story about a marriage that is unraveled by dark secrets, a friendship cursed to end in tragedy, and the danger of believing in fairy tales—the breathtaking adult debut from New York Times bestselling author Roshani Chokshi.
Once upon a time, a man who believed in fairy tales married a beautiful, mysterious woman named Indigo Maxwell-Casteñada. He was a scholar of myths. She was heiress to a fortune. They exchanged gifts and stories and believed they would live happily ever after—and in exchange for her love, Indigo extracted a promise: that her bridegroom would never pry into her past.
But when Indigo learns that her estranged aunt is dying and the couple is forced to return to her childhood home, the House of Dreams, the bridegroom will soon find himself unable to resist. For within the crumbling manor’s extravagant rooms and musty halls, there lurks the shadow of another girl: Azure, Indigo’s dearest childhood friend who suddenly disappeared. As the house slowly reveals his wife’s secrets, the bridegroom will be forced to choose between reality and fantasy, even if doing so threatens to destroy their marriage . . . or their lives.
Combining the lush, haunting atmosphere of Mexican Gothic with the dreamy enchantment of The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue, The Last Tale of the Flower Bride is a spellbinding and darkly romantic page-turner about love and lies, secrets and betrayal, and the stories we tell ourselves to survive.
“Our illusions weave roses around us, and when we try to escape, we are met with thorns.”
Quote from The Last Tale of the Flower Bride by Roshani Chokshi
Our Review of The Last Tale of the Flower Bride by Roshani Chokshi
This book will go into my eerie and creepy book section. Don’t get me wrong! The book is nice. It is eerily nice that it gave me chills. But I am only ready to share four stars with it because despite being good ( in its own way) the genre and narration style is not my cup of tea and perhaps that is the reason why I had a love-hate relationship with it while reading. The Last Tale of the Flower Bride has melancholia written all over it. So if a bit of Noir or slow, haunting, melancholia is your genre, this book will blow your mind.
The book is set, among characters that I couldn’t understand, or relate plus they live in a world which despite being modern day is still a world of their own. This is the kind of book that comes with layers and layers that could be a good idea for a literature class, dissecting every action and trying to understand its symbolic meaning but for a poor soul like me, it was more of like …
wait …what ..come again?
It runs deeper and yes I couldn’t get fully immersed in the book but I would admit that the book is pretty clever and the core plot seemed to be interesting. It is just that the book is for a specific audience or at least someone with an aptitude for it…I guess
I had this book on audiobook and the narrator (male) didn’t help much with making it sound exciting. Perhaps it is his approach of making it sound linear and “a matter of fact”, that instilled further the melancholia and slow burn. But on the other hand, the female portions and part of the story are what pulled me in ( or at least made sense to me )
Conclusion
So in conclusion I would say that the book didn’t work for me as I expected. The Last Tale of the Flower Bride has a very unique approach and that didn’t work for me as to me the book felt even more poetical, challenging to keep up and mostly melancholic which is not what I enjoy. so I would say that this is like a gourmet dish that might not be for every taste bud. Perhaps I will try it with an expensive glass of Wine, sitting on my royal throne, read to me by a chambermaid, once I become Queen of any kingdom that might still be open to the idea of a female monarchy.
Squirrel Rating
