Rating: 2.5

I was interested in the first 20% of the book, but I didn't really care after that. I would have liked it more if the main character wasn't so immature and if the romance wasn't insta-love for no reason.

Don't make the same mistake I did and sleep on this book. It's a phenomenally well-written fantasy with a deliciously twisty plot that kept me glued to it from beginning to end.
Katyani has been bound to her queen since she was a baby and grew up with the princes and princess of Chandela as closely as a sister. When tragedy strikes and she loses everything she ever held dear even as she's framed for being the cause of it, she must use all her skills and stubbornness to find the real culprit and get revenge. There's magic, court intrigue, hidden pasts, and a plethora of mythical beings to keep you glued to the pages.
Just that part of the story is enough to make it an exceptional read, but Mehrotra went the extra mile and added a pitch-perfect romance that rounds out Katyani as a character and lets readers meet the awkwardly perfect Daksh.
This leads me to the third reason why I enjoyed this book so much, which is the wonderful characters the story is inhabited by. Even the villains have a psychological depth that makes you kind of want to see their point. And that's not even touching on the varied creatures and monsters that Katyani faces in her quest.
Overall, I found this to be a nuanced, well-written fantasy full of all the elements that I love. I very. highly recommend not missing out on the wonderful experience of reading it.

Very happy thanks to NetGalley and Wednesday Books for the chance to read it! I'm sorry I took so long.

World was interesting but the characters were just, okay. I found each to be annoying in some way that they didn't endear me to them or want me to root for them.

I was really hoping for more from this story. This standalone fantasy had an amazing set up. The royalty, the monsters, the spiritual magic was wonderfully set up, and I was really excited to get into it. Then the book took a turn that I wasn’t expecting, which in a way reset the whole book for me. And it was like I was reading a brand new book all of a sudden.

The world, the Magic, especially the monsters, were my favourite parts of the story. It was so wonderfully crafted. I just wish the characters lived up to the expectation that I had. As mentioned before, I was in love with these characters in the beginning, but a lot of them, ended up feeling very different after a pivotal bit of the book. I was no longer invested and I was uninterested in their story.

In a monster-infested land inspired by medieval India, Katyani, a young guard who is bonded to the Queen of Chandela, one of two rival kingdoms, must figure out a way protect who and what she cares for after she is betrayed multiple times.

Rati Mehrotra has created in Chandela and its surrounding lands, as well as the monastic school where the Queen sends her sons and Katyani, a textured and vivid world. The politics between Chandela and its rival are slowly teased out in the narrative, and the Mehrotra explanations for the multiple assassination attempts againgt the princes.

Katyani is fierce, brave to a fault at times, and must learn to do be more than just a warrior as her charges and duties become more complex over the course of the book. She finds the misogyny at the monastic school frustrating, as Chandela is more progressive and accepting of sexuality than the leader of the school is.

I found a few things irritating:
-Katyani's overwhelming desire to blame herself for every reversal, even for things she had no control over;
-The romance between Kathyani and Daksh; he's such a snooze, and too mired in tradition and pride for me to find him interesting, despite his martial ability and muscles;
-The men, most of whom are at best annoying and at worst, full of misogyny.

The story mostly kept me engaged, as Katyani must widen her understanding of her world, and of the royal Chandela family she has lived with for as long as she can remember. She's got a lighter, more compassionate side that slowly emerges during her travails, and though I could have done without the romance, the intrigue was fun, as well as the wide variety of monsters populating the land.

Thank you to Netgalley and to St. Martin's Press for this ARC in exchange for my review.

Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for the opportunity to read the eARC.

This was a surprisingly good read for me. I say 'surprising' because I wasn't sure for the first 25% of the book. While the plot and worldbuilding were good, the FMC grated my nerves. I know this is YA, so impetuous decisions and easy anger is to be expected, but still...

Thankfully, the FMC had a significant character growth spurt. I enjoyed that point immensely until the book's end, until around the 99% mark. At that point, I realized that the end of the book was quickly approaching, and it felt rushed to me. Specifically, the slow-burn-to-the-point-of-only-being-smoke romance gets resolved, and then it ends. I literally flipped to the next page, wondering where the rest of it was. It felt pretty abrupt to me.

Those two issues took off a star, but I liked the rest so much that it was only a one-star deduction.

This was a decent read. I felt like the middle was a bit soggy and sometimes I had questions about World building details, but in general I thought it was enjoyable and will be a novel that many of my students can enjoy.

This was a fantastic YA fantasy novel, that I would definitely recommend!

I received an e-ARC from the publisher.

I truly appreciate the world that Mehrotra created honoring modern-day India, and the monsters were well-imagined. While the concept and folklore behind the novel was absolutely fascinating, the execution was a miss for me. Halfway through, I was trying to determine exactly what wasn’t working, and now that I’ve finished, I can say with certainty that it was the writing. I found it to be repetitive, often reiterating Katya's routine thoughts. Many modern terms or phrases were randomly used, which were incongruous with the era. The protagonist also seemed to be described one way yet acted and thought in an entirely different manner. For example, she was supposed to be a warrior/guard, yet she repeatedly acted with immaturity. I feel that while the author wanted to depict a nuanced character, what the reader “told” versus what they were “shown” were two different things. Because of this, events that were supposed to be emotional failed to evoke the intended feelings. The magic system itself wasn't well-defined, and there were several plot threads that didn't reach resolution. I feel that Mehrotra had a lot of wonderful ideas, but they didn't come together into a cohesive, satisfying story.

I read this with #fantasyfrenemies, and there was a lot of discrepancy in opinion. I truly enjoyed our discourse and hearing what others loved, as I definitely feel that the novel has merit! I appreciate the complimentary eARC in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

I liked this book medium. I think it had potential to be so good but just didn’t quite get there. It also took me a month and a week to finish, because I kept getting bored and distracted by shinier books.

This is a sad boi/stabby girl combo that is typically right up my alley, but there just wasn’t enough depth to either of them. Daksh seemed to only have two motivations and those both were more about his father and Katyani than his own personality. And Katyani has this mysterious background that is only lightly touched on. And the romance was more angst than pining. I like the pining.

The magic system was cool, but I didn’t really understand it. I may need to learn more about the religion this was based on. And I felt the villain reveal was a little mustache-twisty.

All of this being said, a number of the #fantasyfrenemies really loved this book. If you like fantasy books with tons of action scenes and a full cast of monsters and creatures, you should definitely give this a try.

Thank you to Net Galley and Wednesday Books for the advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.

This is one I did not finish. I gave it 63% and I just couldn’t do it.

First I would like to thank Netgalley for this book opportunity.

This was a book I was so excited for! But it fell flat far sooner than I even stopped reading. I kept hoping the book would improve.

With a magic system that seemingly made no sense and lacked any rules, and a romance storyline that was cringe worthy and boring, the book had little hope of improvement.

This author is a better YA writer and would recommend any of their other books.

First, I want to say that this cover is absolutely stunning. I would buy this book just because of the cover.
Second, the world and characters in this book are absolutely captivating. I found myself falling in love with them from the very beginning, especially when I got to Katyani and Daksh. Their slow burn romance, plus their constant back and forth of bickering and picking on each other had my heart swooning. I love how this story never stopped with the plot twists, the betrayals, the secrets, and the suspense that never stopped coming.
That being said, I must admit that I'm not a big fan of books that are largely court intrigue and manipulations, unless they involve a faerie/fantasy court. My brain kind of just starts mixing things up and stops caring about details.
I think this book would be amazing with a sequel, but it does well as a standalone. I quite enjoyed my time reading it and would recommend it to others.

*I received a copy of this eBook in exchange for an honest review*
This did not go the way I expected it to. I honestly hoped to enjoy it but was sadly disappointed.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for sending me an eARC of this book.

3/5 Stars

Night of the Raven, Dawn of the Dove was a book I was extremely excited to receive, I have been looking forward to reading this book. Unfortunately I started this book during a reading slump, taking myself longer then normal to read. I am potentially rereading this in the future as I had hard time continuing this book throughout my reading slump. However, I found first half of the book to be slow paced, focusing a lot on storylines in which seemed irrelevant. The last half of the book was much more enticing, although the ending seemed almost as an after thought and rushed. I also found the main character Katyani annoying and repetitive at times, as she seemed to keep mulling the same issue over and over again.

Although, I love reading about the world building and Indian culture. It was a very immersive read in which was detailing a lot about culture and heritage. The world building was done extremely well as it produced a very specific picture in my head. Helping myself getting engrossed within the story.

Overall, I would read this book if you love YA fantasy with great worldbuilding.

This book was amazing!
The romance was to die for, and the characters were incredibly complex and well developed. I spent a long time raving about this to my friends, so I definitely liked it. I would recommend it to anyone who likes fantasy romance.

This sentence from the summary sold me. “Bonds can be broken, but debts must be repaid.” That’s an awesome sentence and sums up this book perfectly.
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Katyani has grown up to be the first guardswoman ever. She is tasked with the job of protecting the Crown’s son.All her training doesn’t totally prepare her as she must look to her past to help protect the future.
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Thank you #NetGalley and #wednesdaybooks for an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review

good book and really enjoyed the characters and their journey. I liked the romance.. I enjoyed how the characters grew in the book and what happened.

While the premise sounded intriguing, the execution here failed to live up to it. Sadly, this felt like another run-of-the-mill quick fantasy that, at under 350 pages, felt almost too short. The initial 10% was interesting, introducing different kingdoms and factions, an assassination plot, and the MC's mysterious background, however the detour into the neutral training academy of sorts stunts all the forward-moving action. It sets up a romantic relationship that felt too obvious and also like not enough and unfortunately showcased some rather poor writing that felt too current and modern. From there, there's a couple of revelations that aren't really explored much except for an initial shock and awe factor and then 60%-90% through I felt I was just waiting for the inevitable and obvious climax and villain reveal. There isn't really a mystery here, you know who the baddies are pretty early on and the main fight with the villain at the end isn't as satisfying as I hoped it would be. The ending features a sweet romantic declaration, but little else in the way of meaningful progress for the future with all the threads and groups introduced.

Overall this felt forgettable and lackluster, I wanted more from the different kingdoms shown, more magic and strange creatures, just overall something a bit more well-developed and focused other than what felt like a vehicle for a cheesy romance with some light fantasy and magic elements.

Rating: 2.5/3, roudning up to 3.

Full of magic and monsters, twists and turns. An amazing action packed fantasy with a slow burn romance and lots of tension. I almost got An Ember in the Ashes vibes and I really enjoyed it.

I was drawn to this book because it is set in a fictional medieval India. I enjoyed the worldbuilding and the characters. But the pace is a little uneven and there was too much telling and not enough showing.

I would still recommend this book regardless if you are looking fo a standalone fantasy with strong female protagonist.