Name: The Library of Fates
ISBN: 9781595148582

Aditi Khorana

After losing everything when her father's kingdom is brutally and suddenly taken over, sixteen-year-old Princess Amrita flees the royal palace with her companion, the seer and former slave Thala, and together they hope to find the legendary Library of All Things, where they can access the stories of their lives and their loved ones, change their future, and save the kingdom.

The Library of Fates

jess

I really liked the worldbuilding of this book, because it integrates fantasy with the real world's history - there's Alexander the Great, and it's not Western fantasy. However, I really wasn't keen on all the romance in this.

Juliette

I really enjoyed this book and I would have given it 5 stars, but I gave it 4 since it took a while for it to actually get interested and past the first 50 pages or so, and for the story to start moving along. After that hump, I couldn't put it down.

Jennifer

A gorgeous and hopeful fantasy novel inspired by a non-Western setting. One thing I've noticed in the fantasy genre is that the worldbuilding tend to be pretty Eurocentric, so when I was reading The Library of Fates, I found the Indian mythology / folklore inspired elements pretty refreshing. If there's something that kept me glued with this book, it's the worldbuilding. The descriptions of the worldbuilding are poetic, gorgeous, and detailed. 

"After some time, people stopped coming, and now the Land of Trees is just like any other place. A place whose magic has been erased."

"Reading the future is like reading nature; the patterns of the rain and the sun and the wind. It moves and recedes. But they want to know everything about the future."

"Every person who has ever walked the Earth has a book that tells the story of their life."

"Looking out over that endless bowl of sky full of billions of stars, biollions of other worlds, I felt like we were the only living creatures left on Earth. The world felt vast, full of mysteries."

For a visual reader, quotes like these have an aesthetic appeal. Here in The Library of Fates, I could visualise a lush and exotic dreamscape between the Earth and the Library. 

On the downside, I think the characterisation and pacing fell way short, complicating the messaging. I know that the author mentioned that The Library of Fates is supposed to be a book filled with hope (despite the bleak political atmosphere in which the book was written) but I didn't feel like the characters are properly fleshed out. For example, I felt that Amrita's personality and her relationship felt unjustified as there's not enough exlored from her headspace. Similarly, the amount of description put into the worldbuilding also slowed the book right down. I felt like the first half of the novel was completely on establishing the world and the plot twists only starts coming in after that.

Technical issues aside, The Library of Fates was still a fun read which transported me into an exotic world filled with magic and hope.

Nikki Sojkowski

I’d recommend this to everyone, it was a powerful story dealing with the ravages of war, and taking fate into your own hands

Melissa Railey

oberon vortigern

A romantic coming-of-age fantasy tale steeped in Indian folklore, perfect for fans of The Star-Touched Queen and The Wrath and the Dawn "Aditi Khorana has whipped up the perfect book recipe: a rogue princess, a freed oracle, and a library with the power to change your fate!" —Justine Magazine No one is entirely certain what brings the Emperor Sikander to Shalingar. Until now, the idyllic kingdom has been immune to his many violent conquests. To keep the visit friendly, Princess Amrita has offered herself as his bride, sacrificing everything—family, her childhood love, and her freedom—to save her people. But her offer isn't enough. The palace is soon under siege, and Amrita finds herself a fugitive, utterly alone but for an oracle named Thala, who was kept by Sikander as a slave and managed to escape amid the chaos. With nothing and no one else to turn to, Amrita and Thala are forced to rely on one another. But while Amrita feels responsible for her kingdom and sets out to warn her people, the newly free Thala has no such ties. She encourages Amrita to go on a quest to find the fabled Library of All Things, where it is possible for each of them to reverse their fates. To go back to before Sikander took everything from them. Stripped of all that she loves, caught between her rosy past and an unknown future, will Amrita be able to restore what was lost, or does another life—and another love—await?