The Book Review: FRACTURED LEGEND

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Book Name:  Fractured Legend                     

Author:  Kranthi Askani

Category:  Fantasy Fiction 
Pages: 191

Publisher: APK Publishers

Rating: 3.5/5 

                                             

                                                     

          

When it comes to reading I am very selective in picking the books I read.  Fantasy Fiction is one style I avoid reading. But when I read the summary of ‘Fractured Legend’, I was in awe with the writers thought process. Quite unconventional I must say.  So I decided to go against my apprehensions and give the book a fair chance.

Fractured Legend is a story of a dilapidated temple which is home to a number of slave girls. These girls deliquesce into flesh at night and turn into rocks again in the morning. One such slave girl is Priyambada. Priyambada breaks free from her life as a slave girl to live a life of mortality in flesh.  The first part of the book revolves around her life as a slave girl and later about her life in flesh. She had served the queen for a lot of years and no longer wanted to live life as a piece of stone. With the help of a magical ring that she received from her queen, she slipped into a house and become a part of their lives overnight. She entered the home as a teenage girl who became a woman and who eventually got married.  In the beginning of her life as flesh, she battled the temptations to freeze back into a rock.  But few years down the lane, she had her own small world.  Priyambada had very well understood that it was better to age and die as a flesh than to live the life of immortality as a rock. 

The second part of the book is about Nandhini who is a professional assassin and is on an assignment to recover the manuscript. This manuscript leads her from one trouble to another and finally she has her life at stake. The third part of the story is about Pravalli, who is Priyambada’s daughter. She is drafting a long letter to her mom. 

The link between these three women is Aardya, who herself  is a slave girl and the one who Priyambada was closest to in the temple. 

Albeit the boring start, book picks up pace after some 70 odd pages. With every passing page you adore the writing skills of the author. He is a Paragon in descriptive writing. However, the author doesn’t seem to be an equally good story teller.  After a certain point of time the description looks like a guff and the story doesn’t seem to be moving ahead. What lacks the most in the story is the Mystery. It becomes quite easy for the reader to for see what would happen ahead.

On the positive note, the story & concept hit the bull’s eye. Author's conceptualizations of thoughts look intransigent. The book escalates you to an altogether different world. A world which seems to be unreal; A world which looks like an illusion. This world  is far off from the one you have seen and grown up in.  

At the end a lot of questions remain unanswered. The author leaves it for you to tie the loose ends.

Overall just a bit above average read. 

About the Author:
The author, Kranthi Askani is a novelist from Hyderabad, India. He works with Infosys, one of the software giants of India. His fictional style integrates magical realism with gothic elements. This is his first work in writing.