House of My Brilliant Friend

The Last Tale of the Flower Bride by Roshani Chokshi

Theirs is a marriage of fairy tales and secrets, surviving only so long as nothing of the bride is revealed or unravelled. But then the bride is called back home and her husband duly accompanies her. The secrets are now too close, too tantalising, to a scholar who was once comfortable with not knowing who he married. But he will be comfortable no longer.

Like all novels that sit on the literary fiction shelf, this was at times difficult to read - mostly because of the sumptuous prose that perfectly matches the novel's fairy tale themes. But I enjoyed the slow build-up of tension, the ambiguous magical realism, and the teasing hints (which became even more enjoyable when I realised what was coming).

A fascinating fable that brings to mind the works of Isabel Allende and Elena Ferrante.

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