Rea and the Blood of the Nectar by Payal Doshi

She saw a kindred spirit and made sure to be around. Leela has always been open for a friendship with Rea. Rea has been hurt in the past and she doesn’t trust. I love that this didn’t and that we get a bit of the culture through their every day life.Īnother element that I really appreciated was the friendship between Leela and Rea. So much starts in America or other English speaking countries. Its the kind of representation we still miss often. Having the starting world be India is great to have. The magical world isn’t inspired by india but it doesn’t have to be. This book is set in India and I love that. There were elements that I really liked and there were elements that I didn’t care for as much. Supported by her friend Leela, she jumps into a whole magical world. And so she goes out on her own to find her brother. Her amma and grandmother seem to know so much more but they won’t say anything. After a midnight escape from the house from both of them, Rohan dissapears. Because her twin brother Royan doesn’t want to celebrate it with her.

We follow Rea who feels alone and rejected on her birthday. Can she rescue Rohan, save Astranthia, and live to see it all?Ī middle grade portal fantasy set in India? Yes please we need more of these kind of books on the shelves. Struggling with the truth her Amma has kept hidden from her, Rea must solve clues that lead to Rohan, find a way to rescue him and save Astranthia from a potentially deadly fate. Rea also discovers that she is a princess with magic.

There with the help of Xeranther, an Astranthian barrow boy, and Flula, a pari, Rea battles serpent-lilies and blood-sucking banshees, encounters a butterfly-faced woman and blue lizard-men, and learns that Rohan has been captured. In the shade of night, they portal into an otherworldly realm and travel to Astranthia, a land full of magic and whimsy. Unwilling to give up on her brother, Rea and her friend Leela meet Mishti Daadi, a wrinkly old fortune-teller whose powers of divination set them off on a thrilling and secret quest. Her grandmother, too, is behaving strangely. It hasn’t even been a day and Amma acts like Rohan’s gone forever. It’s four in the morning and Rohan is nowhere to be found. After a big fight with her twin brother Rohan on their birthday, Rea’s life in the small village of Darjeeling, India, gets turned on its head. It all begins on the night Rea turns twelve.

Rea and the Blood of the Nectar by Payal Doshi