Tara used to have a perfect like in her village, Morni, happy with her family. But everything changes when her mother and grandfather suddenly leave one night. Her father quickly remarries and her new stepmother is terrible, she’s mean and she definitely doesn’t love Tara or her little brother Suraj.
But when people start going missing from their village and no one can figure out why, a new healer comes to Morni, named Zarku with a strange and powerful third eye. Suddenly it’s up to Tara to fight to save her village from Zarku and the monsters lurking in the forest.
I give this book four stars (out of five). I really enjoyed reading this book, it’s well written and amazing. However, there were certain things and parts that confused me. I got confused when it was talking about the different gods because I didn’t know which one was the god of what or controlled different things. So a bit more background information included within the story would’ve been a nice addition.
The story follows Tara as she tries to overcome the challenges of living with a stepmother who hates her and her little brother Suraj, and a father who won’t do anything to change their terrible living conditions. In their village of Morni men have been disappearing and since Tara’s mother and grandfather left there’s no healer. So, when they start coming back in different forms no one knows what to do.
But to help them when all seems lost a new healer appears, Zarku, a strange man with a powerful third eye. Everyone thinks he’s a hero, except for Tara. She can see through his act and knows to fear him from the start.
To save Morni from Zarku, the mysterious magic he holds and the monsters that are lurking in the woods Tara goes out to find her missing family. Her grandfather is the true healer, and he is the only one who can rightfully save the village. Using her unstoppable courage and quick planning skills Tara ventures into the woods near Morni, bringing her brother Suraj with her so he isn’t left alone with her bad stepmother.
But along the way things go wrong and Tara is pushed to the limits to do what’s right for her village and survive to tell the tale. She must enlist the help of the god Ganesh and the lord of death, Yama, or she will never be able to stop Zarku’s third eye.
The other main thing I want to talk about for this book is the ending, it is a total cliffhanger. Once you finish reading the book you need to read the sequel (The Silver Anklet) as soon as possible just to know what happens next. The ending of the first book made me so curious I just needed to keep reading.
I also really loved all the characters and their relationships with each other, it was so easy to tell how much Tara cared for her little brother Suraj. Overall I really loved the story and would recommend this book to anyone who wants to read a great book with really compelling characters. I found the inclusion and introduction to Gods from Indian mythology to be really interesting once I understood them and I loved the cultural aspect of this story, as someone who knew hardly nothing about that before reading this book I think I can say that it’s also relatively educational on that topic.