Sixteen year
old Nisha was abandoned at the gates of the City as a toddler. She has only the
vaguest memories of life before she came there. Unlike the other girls in the
City, who are assigned to one of the seven houses that specialize in certain
types of education (medicine, music, beauty, combat, discipline etc), she has
been trained in several. As the assistant to the head of the City, she is used
to gather information on all the goings on in the City. When one of the girls
dies, Nisha’s job is to find out more about it. When a second girl dies, Nisha
is sure it was connected and it was murder- but can she find out who is behind
it? And will the young man she has met- a member of the ruling family- speak
for her when the yearly festival comes around, the festival where the sixteen
year old girls are married or sold off?
It’s an
enjoyable novel with a lot of intrigue. It has an Asian feel to it; in some
ways, it seems Japanese with the martial arts and girls being trained in one
house as geisha like companions; at times it seemed Indian. There are people
who are clearly Romany. But the girls hair, skin and eyes span the range of
human coloration. Then there are the cats who communicate telepathically with
Nisha….
In some ways,
the novel reminded me of Andre Norton, but a beginner Andre Norton. The
characters are somewhat flat, and the main suspect for the deaths is Sashi, a
blind novice in the house of medicine; some of the things the killer does could
not have been done by an unsighted person unaided. It’s obviously a first
novel, but the author shows a lot of promise.
No comments:
Post a Comment