Fantasy novel ‘The Garden of Delights’: Kindness is the only antidote to hate and conflict

Amal Singh’s first foray into full-length fiction, The Garden of Delights is a book that’s kind to even its monsters. For it is humans who bring misery in real as well as imagined world. Polished to almost perfection, it’s as delightful as the title.

Iyena Mastafar, a 15-year-old girl lives in Alderra with her father, an influential bureaucrat in the corridors of power. A cold and distant man, he pushes her to learn Albuchemy: an art of manipulating metal through words and intent. Mourning a mother who’s not dead, Iyena is recalcitrant when her father tells her they’re going to shift to Sirvassa. Sirvassa is a “city of dreams” and “petal rains” whereas Alderra has only two shades in the sky: grey and brown.

A cage inside a cage

Iyena, contrary to her reservations, falls in love with this new city where petals fall like rain and a net is drawn taut across the sky to keep a monster at bay. Here – she comes to know from her joyous friend Trehan – is a Garden. The Garden is magical and so is its Caretaker. He distributes delights to the populace of Sirvassa – harmless magical tricks that enable an ordinary person to move a boulder or jump...

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