Swati Teerdhala

The first book in an epic heart-pounding fantasy trilogy inspired by ancient Indian history and Hindu mythology, perfect for fans of Sabaa Tahir and Renée Ahdieh. * A Book Riot Most Anticipated Novel of 2019 * B&N Top 50 Most Anticipated Novels * A broken bond. A dying land. A cat-and-mouse game that can only end in bloodshed. Esha lost everything in the royal coup--and as the legendary rebel known as the Viper, she's made the guilty pay. Now she's been tasked with her most important mission to date: taking down the ruthless General Hotha. Kunal has been a soldier since childhood. His uncle, the general, has ensured that Kunal never strays from the path--even as a part of Kunal longs to join the outside world, which has only been growing more volatile. When Esha and Kunal's paths cross one fated night, an impossible chain of events unfolds. Both the Viper and the soldier think they're calling the shots, but they're not the only players moving the pieces. As the bonds that hold their land in order break down and the sins of the past meet the promise of a new future, both the soldier and the rebel must decide where their loyalties lie: with the lives they've killed to hold on to or with the love that's made them dream of something more.

The Tiger at Midnight

Remmi Ahmed

When Esha had last been here, the Fortress was alive with people and color. The land surrounding it had been healthy, and when moonlight struck the cliffs, they glimmered like hardened rubies. Now the land was dying and the Fort stood on the top of the hill, bleak and ominous, its heart ripped out ten years ago on the night of the coup. 

Everywhere she went, there were signs that the land was dying.

It had been different ten years ago. The heat had still been punishing, but it held a gentleness, and the land turned out beautiful purple flowers and lip-puckering fruits. Nothing grew in this patch of land anymore, after the Bhagya River, their mother river, started to vanish, after the janma bond had been broken. 

As an eight-year-old, newly arrived and adrift, he had come here often to stare at the tall statues of fabled generals. He’d marvel at the way the statues almost came to life despite being carved into the marble walls, at the paintings that hung next to each general, depicting their greatest victory. He would spend hours under the hall’s gold etched ceilings.

Death surrounded them as soldiers, and they wielded it as they did their weapons. To be scared of death as a sol- dier was to invite it in to claim you. Kunal forced himself to draw his eyes up and rest on the boy's frame, which looked smaller in death. To remember and respect him, the small stories, the dreams and hopes he had nestled in his chest, as they all did. 

A soldier's life was ruthless, cold, and Kunal hadn't always known how to stomach it. He ihaled, saying a small prayer over the boy's life, and then savagely brought up the walls around his heart.

She spoke harshly because he was pure gold and she was tainted black. Her presence in his life would smudge the perfect edges of his goodness, strip his shine. Wasn't it painfully obvious with every quip and tease and flirting word that he was slowly burrowing into her Soul?

He loved Jansa, his homeland, but he was seeing that the soldiers were only the puppets of the king, fed half- truths and convenient stories. Might over loyalty, brutality Over compassion, greed over temperance. He wasn't even sure anymore that becoming commander would make any sort of difference, despite how desperately he now wanted it to be true.

She paused to look back at him, her eyes holding a farewell in their depths, before disappearing down the street.

Grief, so deeply entrenched that it felt like an ocean in itself, engulfed him as he thought of his mother's voice.

It was monsoon season. Water could be as treacherous as the other elements-slow, calculated, unforgiving. It could renew and give life and snatch it away in the next moment. 

 "Every time. Every time I see the ocean, I have the same feeling. My heart squeezes at the beauty and its absolute enormity. And I think again how I will never be able to paint its majesty or capture its every facet because I'll never be worthy of it.”

The Tiger at Midnight quotes

Join the club