happy release day!

not something i would say a favorite but the last tale of the flower bride was a gothic tale that i actually was able to enjoy! this book has the prettiest writing ever and the atmosphere through out the book was just so vivid which made my experience reading this so much better. HOWEVER, even though the writing is pretty, it's not a fairly easy book to get through as there are some heavy and triggering things one of the characters went through.

i liked that we get two perspectives telling us about the main character Indigo, one from her past and one from her present. Azure's perspective is definitely the most interesting IMO because their friendship, even though definitely not the most healthy because they're both so dependent and intense on each other, was so interesting to read about and i love the underlying sapphic tones behind their friendship even though again, not the most healthy friendship. Don't really care as much about the other POV though. I also love the concept of the house and the Otherworld.

thank you to hodder & stoughton and netgalley for approving me of an arc!

This is great. I remember reading the synopsis, adding the book to me tbr and then forgetting about it. Then, a few months ago I saw the book available here. I wanted to read it, but without really remembering what it was about... The feeling though of a great mystery was there.

I started the book and was immediately immersed to the story and the characters. A beautifully written story, a fairy tale, with interesting - flawed characters.

The dark, mysterious feeling throughout the Story was a plus!

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for providing me with the book in exchange for my honest opinion.

I was sent a copy of The Last Tale of the Flower Bride by Roshani Chokshi to read and review by NetGalley. I fell totally in love with this book and all of its characters. I found it to be really well written with very believable characters – even with the essence of magic surrounding them. I thought the house of dreams was a wonderful character in itself. This is a novel that you can really get lost in and I recommend it wholeheartedly. Read and enjoy!

The wonderful cover and blurb had me really excited for this novel, but unfortunately for me, it missed its mark. While I was drawn in by the dark nature of the tale I found the book over written and the flowery language could not sustain my interest. I unfortunately saw the twist too early and this made the ending of the book, no surprise. I did finish the novel but it felt like a chore rather than the delight I was expecting. Although not for me, I think lovers of the dark relationships, gothic themes and fairytales will have a totally different experience. Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC of this novel in return for an honest review.

5 stars
Thank you to NetGalley and Hodder & Stoughton for a copy of this ARC. All thoughts are my own.

I'll preface this by saying, I don't normally read books like this. I was intrigued by the synopsis but unsure if I would enjoy it, given it's out of my comfort reading zone. But my gosh, how I LOVED THIS.

What's great about this book?
- I love how darkly enchanting this was. The gothic atmosphere is superb, and you feel like you're deep diving into another world with this read. Chokshi has utilised fairytales to support this theme of the Otherworld, and how trauma can make you see things in another way.
- This book is told from two POVs, the Bridegroom and Azure, and you can sense their changes and opening up to other thoughts than the ones they grasp so tightly onto. It's rewarding piecing together their journeys and how it has affected them the older they get. By the end of it, watching them face their trauma, their truths hidden deep down is the icing on the cake of this read.
- The story isn't linear, but I was so impressed by how well it worked in showing the reader different angles to Indigo - the pivotal focus of both our main characters - and the House of Dreams. Keeping the story off a straight path allows it to thrive in its haunting charm and brew the obsessive natures of the situation and characters.
- The storyline itself is so compelling and supported by fantastic visual imagery and prose. I was amazed by how far Indigo went with Azure, how much they believed in this Otherworld, and how toxic and dark everything was. I could the addiction of Indigo to Azure and the Bridegroom was wrong, but it was equally investing to navigate how these two individuals coped and worked alongside such strange ideals.
- Whilst I had come to guess the final plot twist, it was still incredibly rewarding and surprising when it happened. This is a tragic story, yet I loved every moment of it, and the hope that is instilled in breaking free of the roles we can play in other people's worlds that affect our own.

I thoroughly enjoyed this adventure of dark games and twisted relationships. I've never read anything like it and look forward to trying more books by this author in the future.

I received The Last Tale of the Flower Bride by Roshani Chokshi for free by the lovely Kate at Hodderscape in exchange for an honest review. Thank you so much for my advanced copy!

Roshani Chokshi is one of my favourite authors and I think everyone knew that this was one of my most anticipated reads of the year (I literally would not shut up about it 😂) and WOW what a book! How can I even begin to review one of my favourite books I’ve ever read?!

I’m really glad that I went into this book not knowing much about it and I would definitely recommend that as you get the full immersive experience - but definitely check the trigger warnings first! The imagery throughout the story was absolutely fantastic and I loved the weaving in of myths as the story progressed. I wanted to savour every word and loved how dreams and reality were intertwined.

Plus, I really liked the theme of devotion in this story especially how it was geared to both fantasy and reality, and the mirroring of events that happen to different characters was so clever! It was haunting, ethereal and just absolute perfection to me! After finishing this book, I was in a moment of awe. I found it hard to accept that I would have to go back to my normal life when I just wanted to talk about this book and how amazing it was!

The Last Tale of the Flower Bride is a dark and seductive story that has incredible suspense and thrills with the bite of the Brothers Grimm’s tales! It was absolutely extraordinary!

The Last Tale of the Flower Bride is the sort of book that grips you as soon as you read the first page and absolutely does not let you go. The story follows a man obsessed with myth and fairytales as he ends up married to the mysterious and beautiful Indigo Maxwell-Casteñada. Their marriage is built on a promise that he must never look into her history or pry into her secrets. When the couple learns that Indigo’s aunt is dying they must return to Indigo’s family home – the House of Dreams and the bridegroom discovers a childhood best friend that mysteriously disappeared. Can he resist prying into Indigo’s past and what will be the consequences if he does?

I really enjoyed Roshani Chokshi’s Gilded Wolves series so when I heard about The Last Tale of the Flower Bride, I was incredibly intrigued. This book feels completely different and I think that really shows Chokshi’s talent as a writer. Despite finishing this book a while ago I still find myself thinking about it. Intricately plotted, the story is full to the brim with atmosphere and a sense of mystery. This story is beautifully written and the hazy, Gothic sense of unease that lingers throughout the story had me turning pages long into the night.

Chokshi does an amazing job of bringing the setting to life and images of the old, creaking house really sprang to life. The characters were so complex and fascinating, particularly as their secrets were revealed and things began to unravel. The Last Tale of the Flower Bride is a triumph and definitely my favourite book from Chokshi so far. If you’re looking for a book full of lush, lyrical prose and a captivating plot, this one is definitely a must read.

This book is written from the perspectives of the Bridegroom and Azure.

The Bridegroom is a historian specialising in the Middle Ages, and while he is in Paris he meets wealthy Indigo Maxwell-Casteñada. The duo soon discover that they both share their fascination of fairy tales and folk stories and that’s what binds them together.

They soon marry, however, on the one condition that the Bridegroom doesn’t probe into Indigo’s past; it’s better if they look to the future together.

He agrees, but fate has other ideas… One day, Indigo receives a phone call that her Aunt Hippolyta is dying. Indigo’s parents died when she was young and she was raised by her Aunt in the House of Dreams.

The Bridegroom and Indigo depart for the House of Dreams, where he discovers remnants of Indigo’s past. Will he resist the temptation and break his promise?

I really liked the idea behind the book and the fact that it was written like a fairy tale. Indigo’s marriage to her husband was almost fantastical, something you only see in the Hollywood movies (or you read in books!).

I liked the chapters written from Azure’s point of view. Thanks to her, we soon discovered Indigo’s true character, and it wasn’t a pleasant read. She was devious, jealous, and manipulative. I also thought she was a bit deluded herself, believing that she was a faerie.

On the other hand, I felt that the characters were quite detached from reality of everyday life. Indigo lived in a world of her own, whereas her husband (who didn’t seem to have a name) was feeding her all those old stories from the Middle Ages, almost perpetuating her delusions.

I didn’t hate the book, but I didn’t love it. Saying that, you might enjoy it!

Thanks to Hodder & Stoughton for approving my NetGalley request to read and review this title.

A man known only as the ”Bridegroom”, falls madly in love with an heiress. Love is blind, they say, and he is blind to the mystery surrounding his new wife, Indigo Maxwell-Castenada. The mystery, at least at first, is the condition she imposes on him, namely that he must never investigate her past. Shortly thereafter they have to travel to “The House of Dreams”, Indigo’s childhood home, and shortly after that the story descends into a dark Gothic fairy tale.
The writing is poetic and often quite beautiful, but neither Gothic nor fairy tale appeal to me, and this inevitably affects my reaction. Basically, loved the writing, didn’t like the story.
I would like to thank NetGalley, the publishers and the author for providing me with a draft proof copy for the purpose of this review.

I definitely went into this story with the wrong expectations due to the misleading blurb. I thought this would be a gothic fairy tale focused on the secrets of a marriage, but it wasn’t exactly that. The Last Tale of the Flower Bride is not fantasy, but magical realism and gothic horror. If I had known that in advance, I wouldn’t have requested an eARC, since magical realism is a subgenre that I usually don’t like. Despite that, it wouldn’t have taken me almost two weeks to finish this book if it hadn’t been for how much of this book revolves around pedophilia, which made this reading experience so hard—I advise people to check out the trigger warnings, since this book deals with heavy themes. Oh, and in addition to everything else I mentioned, I saw the plot twist coming a mile away. Honestly, I’m just glad I’m done with this story.

3⭐️ A Magical Realist Gothic tale with a thriller feel, reminiscient of Angela Carter's writing

Thank you to Netgalley and Hodder & Stoughton for an eARC in retur for an honest review.

Ok so I was soooo excited going into this and was expecting it to be one of my favourite January reads but sadly it just didn't hit the mark with me like I wanted it to. I think a lot of the issues would have been solved for me had these been a historical fiction rather than more modern. I found it really difficult to place the time period and it was actually quite jarring to find out that this wasn't set in the 19th or early 20th century. For me personally, I think I would have gelled better with this book if this had been the case- I just feel like it would have felt more at home in a historical period.

This of course, as both gothic and magical realist, was a bit odd, it's to be expected and embraced in the genre however there were times where I wasn't entirely sure what was going on and couldnt picture it clearly enough to understand.

Despite this, I did like the premise, the dual POV worked really well, flicking between the past and present and the House of Dreams was the perfect Gothic setting. This reminded me of Angela Carter's The Bloody Chamber and I also loved the thriller undertones of this book which, for me went beyond the typical gothic suspense.

I was expecting something a little different. I would still recommend it to fans of Gothic tales. This one just was not for me as a reader as I struggled to stay invested in the story.

This is a fantastic, gorgeous Gothic fairy tale for adults. A story about a married couple, she an heiress and he a historian of myths and fairy tales. The woman had a friend when she was a girl and they were obsessed with trying to become part of a world beyond ours, a world of magic and fairies. The husband thinks he might once have had a brother, but he cannot be sure. A very dark and dreamy tale to get totally lost in.

First ya/adult book I read by this author (I love the Aru Shah series with all my heart!!!). So I was quite excited for her new book. And let me tell you, it doesn't disappoint. It is a Gothic fairytale full of magic and but horrendous secrets. It was a bit hard to follow the story so it might not be a book for everyone. Either way, i really liked this one!!

The Bridegroom meets Indigo Maxwell-Casteñada, who he is surprised to find is a beautiful woman, to gain access to an ancient grimoire. She draws The Bridegroom into her world of magic and fairy tales but insists he never delve into her past. When The Bridegroom finds a lock of dark hair with an A motif, he realises there is someone in her past he has yet to meet... a visit to her failing aunt will start to unravel Indigo's past.

For me this was more fantasy than gothic, but it's well written and intriguing, I could see this adapted for the screen as it would be visually stunning!

1.8 Stars
One Liner: Fantastic premise… below par execution with too much prose

He was obsessed with fairytales and mythologies, always looking for answers. She was an ultra-rich heiress with too many secrets. They meet and get married. However, the happy-ever-after of their marriage is threatened by the past.
When Indigo’s estranged aunt is on her deathbed, the newlywed couple moves into The House of Dreams, a place with too many things buried and hidden in the dark. His naturally inquisitive nature makes it hard to keep his promise of not asking about Indigo’s past.
What happens when the secrets are revealed?
The story comes from two POVs.

What I Like:
The blurb is enticing and paints the picture of a gothic story with dark romance, danger, and maybe betrayal. Sadly, the blurb is a lot better than the book.
The covers (yes, both) are eye-catchy and super attractive. I could use the cover with the girl’s face to tick off a reading challenge prompt. Small mercies!
The toxicity of the characters and their relationships comes out really well. It would help people explain red flags by discussing these characters.
The ending is rather good, despite everything. I’m glad for the characters.

What Could Have Been Better for Me:
Oh, well… this could be lengthy.
First, the excessive prose tries too hard to create a dark atmosphere. It succeeds in some places, but most of the time, it nudges the reader to zone out and think of anything else but the book. I could concentrate only after I started speed-reading. I requested the book after being impressed by the author’s work in Three Kisses, One Midnight. This promised something more but left me feeling highly disappointed.
Second, the house is vital in gothic fiction. Giving it a character isn’t enough, though. The house should actually have a role to play. Just Like Home makes the house an integral part of the plot, and I couldn’t help but feel claustrophobic when reading some scenes. Here, the setting has great potential but drowns in the excessive purple prose. Let it breathe and establish itself.
Third, the plot is wafer-thin and almost non-existent. It doesn’t have to be new (there are only so many plots available), but it has to be effective. Personally, I love books that have a touch of magical realism. Here, it’s more of an illusion of magic. So much can be done with a setting like that, and we end up with a tangled mess of characters who need immediate medical help. (As much as I love lush prose, I want a plot too. One reason I dislike Where the Crawdads Sing.)
Fourth, the nameless bridegroom ends up as one of the most underdeveloped and underutilized characters most of the time. Even his POV merely acts as a tool to advance the plot. This is clear in the bare minimum attention he gets. The other track looks like the author’s favorite. Having that track alone would have worked better, IMO. More space to present the sick and twisted minds of the characters. The dual POVs don’t help either, and those plot holes… Ahem.
Fifth, the twist is painfully obvious. I would have rated it higher if this aspect was also dealt with a smoke screen to come up with a double twist. I could guess almost all developments after the 35% mark. While I don’t mind that in cozy mysteries, I do mind it in atmospheric and ‘dark’ novels.
Sixth, with so many references to fairytales and mythologies, the book has tremendous scope to dive deep into the paranormal aspects. You can’t have characters obsessed with faeries and faes and not use them in a gothic novel. It’s confusing to determine the actual intent of the book. It is supposed to be ‘magical’ or ‘delusional’? Of course, a book can have both, but the intent has to be clear (at least by the last page).
Seventh, the romance isn’t exactly dark, especially if we refer to Indigo and the nameless man. I still don’t understand how he became a scholar. And whatever happened to his research? The hints of sick love are mostly found in the past track (in which case, the blurb is rather misleading).

To summarize, The Last Tale of the Flower Bride could have indeed been a breathtakingly dark romance of fairytales, secrets, and betrayals. But it ends up much below the expectations it set for the readers.
Thank you, NetGalley and Hodder & Stoughton, for the eARC. This review is voluntary and contains my honest opinion about the book.

A story of dreams and nightmares, fairytale realms and not looking behind the vale. Of secrets and the past we can't leave behind even when we most certainly should to keep the ones we love from revealing the truth behind the mask we have always seen. Azure and Indigo spent there youth in the House of Dreams desperate to be take to the fairy realm and become who they always were. But dreams can just as easily be a cleverly crafted illusion to trick us into a false sense of security and take from us or free will and all that is essential to the self, the soul that when given to freely may just be our doom. The story is told from The Husbands point of view and Azure, the best friend. The husband is desperate for all the truths behind myths, to find the brother he thinks he had who was taken, or vanished into a chest full of clothes to somewhere he cannot go. When he meets Indigo he know instantly that she is magical and dangerous, in the way magical things are, never peek behind the curtain. Their story is full of fairytales and warnings to never ask more than I am willing to tell you or you will loose me. But something way more sinister seems to be going on and it may just cost the Husband and Azure everything. An interesting story full of myths and tales of love and tragedy and darkness and despair. I could not put it down!

The plot twist of this book, I'll be honest I did not expect and was just the icing on the cake. Also Roshani Chokshi's writing is just absolutely beautiful.

In a Nutshell: Disappointed! There’s a plot in here somewhere, but it’s tough to locate it amid the extensive purple prose. Liked a few of the writing flourishes, but not the book.

Story Synopsis:
A few years ago, an unnamed man married Indigo Maxwell-Casteñada, a beautiful, wealthy and mysterious woman. Theirs was a quick relationship, with Indigo readily giving him her love on just one condition – that he never pry into her past.
When Indigo learns that her estranged aunt is on her deathbed, the couple rush to her childhood home, known as the House of Dreams. Within this huge mansion lie plenty of secrets, and the man finds himself unable to resist the urge to know the secrets of his bride. Will his curiosity end up destroying his marriage, or his own life?
The story comes to us in the first person perspective of two characters, one of whom is the unnamed man who is referred to as ‘The Bridegroom’.

Where the book worked for me:
😍 The author has a wonderful knowledge of fairy tales and lore, and her vocabulary is excellent.
😍 The book represents toxic friendship quite well. This doesn’t make the characters easy to like, but their motives comes out decently.
😍 The cover is a treat to the eyes! (Both covers actually: I couldn’t decide which cover I liked better: the US edition or the UK one.)

Where the book left me with mixed feelings:
😐 As a Gothic novel, the book needed to have an intriguing house, and it scores high on atmosphere with the House of Dreams, and even the Otherworld. Unfortunately, the house is used more like a background prop than as a character unto itself. It is personified but not utilised to its potential. What was the point of it? (The House kept reminding me of the delightful house from Keeper of Enchanted Rooms. How I missed the same effect! This one felt forced in comparison.)
😐 The writing is quite beautiful. Many lines were striking. However, the ornateness of the flowery text bogs down the story as well as the pacing. There’s no balance between the two crucial elements of plot and prose.
😐 There is plenty of foreshadowing in the woman’s pov, which works at times but also irritates an equal number of times.
😐 The big reveal is easy to spot if you are paying attention. It is hinted at regularly. The ending was good, but as I had seen it coming, it was not as impactful for me as it could have been.

Where the book could have worked better for me:
😒 The plot begins with the idea that the bridegroom met Indigo when he was searching for a 13th century grimoire. The grimoire isn’t mentioned at all after the first chapter! Did he just forget about it?
😒 The couple meet, get attracted to each other, and marry within the first couple of chapters. This is one of the most rushed “romances” I have seen in fiction, especially as we don’t even know what X-factor brings the two of them together except that each finds the other attractive.
😒 Of the two character perspectives, the author was clearly more invested in one and the other served only as the handrail through which the preferred plot progressed upwards.
😒 The two first-person narratives don’t do the book any favour. The voice of both characters sounds the same, despite the difference in gender. At times, I even lost track of whether the bridegroom was speaking or the other character. (On a related note: the bridegroom’s pov is infused with so many emotions that it is tough to remember that we are hearing a man’s voice.)
😒 The writing is very slow (mainly because of the frivolous embellishments) and I had to force myself to continue. My head refused to co-operate and kept wandering outside the realms of the plot.
😒 Characters are exotic for the sake of it. We read a little about their different skin colour or their appearance, but their actual ethnic origin is never revealed. It's so tough to visualise characters when they are written like this.
😒 The author has a fondness for certain words and they pop up in the narrative time and again. This needn’t be a big word. Even something as simple as ‘lips’ gets a regular appearance.
(Quick Question: How many times can I tolerate characters rubbing their thumbs over another’s lips?
Answer: Zero.)
😒 There are plenty of references to fae elements in the plot, but we never know whether they were actual or just in the imagination of the characters. Quite a lot is left unsaid.


I had expected far more from this author because I have heard so much about her Aru Shah series, though I haven’t read her works yet. This is her debut adult fiction, so I am unsure if this had her typical writing style, or if she goofed up in her writing methodology in a quest to cater to her adult audience. Either way, I might still try her works in future, but will restrict myself to the children’s fantasy titles.

This one gets a no-no from me. However, if you are the kind of reader who loves lush prose even at the cost of a coherent plot, you will certainly want to give this a try. I hope you do. A majority of readers did love it. Will work if you are looking for a dark romance or a gothic fantasy. Won’t work as a mystery-thriller, as some readers have erroneously tagged it.

2 stars.

My thanks to Hodder & Stoughton and NetGalley for the DRC of “The Last Tale of the Flower Bride”. This review is voluntary and contains my honest opinion about the book. Sorry this worked out so poorly.

The Last Tale of the Flower Bride is a dark, lush story about toxic friendships, the pain of love, and the empty promises of a fairy tale. It's strange and enchanting, with more than enough mystery to keep the reader intrigued.

Our two POV characters are the Bridegroom of the charasmatic, rich and strange Indigo Maxwell-Castenada. Heir to a fortune, the two fall in love - they are wed, and all Indigo asks is that the Bridegroom not pry into her past. There's a clever subversion of the Bluebeard story here, a deeply dark story - this one is perhaps even darker. The Bridegroom keeps his promise until he visits Indigo's childhood home, where he searches for answers about both his own troubled past and Indigo's.

In the past, we meet Azure, a now-missing young woman who is embroiled in a heated, intense friendship with the young Indigo. These chapters were the novel's highlight - Chokshi, a YA author, evokes the claustraphobic love of teenagehood so well. We know something horrible happened to Azure, and the tension builds over the course of the novel.

I enjoyed this one, though it took me quite a while to read as the prose is lush - bordering on too flowery, though I accept that this is a question of taste. The intense friendship of the two young women is the most fascinating aspect, as I said, and their preoccupation with "the Otherworld" - real or imagined? - becomes all consuming, in a way that reminded me of Heavenly Creatures. I love a good twisted teenage gal friendship!!

There are very dark elements to this story, too, though - almost too dark and I have a high thresshold for these things. Chokshi bit off a lot with this one - toxic friendships, class divides, P*dophilia, and abusive relationship[s all crop up, but none are really dug into enough to leave an impression. The novel is so pre-occupied with buried memories - Indigo's, Azure's, the Bridegroom's - yet the sources of the trauma aren't fully explored, and in the end, the novel left me wanting a bit due to this.

.I loved: the twisted love story, the toxic friendship, the magical realism, the dreamy prose.
Not so much: the slightly sagging plot and pacing, the traumatic bits.