Asian American Literature Fans

By Stephen Hong Sohn

Occasionally, I will request a review copy of a title I really know I’m going to want to read. This title was one of those titles, but it apparently was so sought after that no review copies were even left. In any case, now that I’ve sat down with a copy, I can see why the work was so popular. It presents us with the tried and true formula in the young adult paranormal romance genre that has taken the world and Hollywood by storm in recent years. In this case, our narrator and our young heroine is named Maya; she is born under a very bad horoscope, one portending doom and destruction.

From here, we’ll let B&N do some work for us: “Fate and fortune. Power and passion. What does it take to be the queen of a kingdom when you're only seventeen? Maya is cursed. With a horoscope that promises a marriage of Death and Destruction, she has earned only the scorn and fear of her father's kingdom. Content to follow more scholarly pursuits, her whole world is torn apart when her father, the Raja, arranges a wedding of political convenience to quell outside rebellions. Soon Maya becomes the queen of Akaran and wife of Amar. Neither roles are what she expected: As Akaran's queen, she finds her voice and power. As Amar's wife, she finds something else entirely: Compassion. Protection. Desire... But Akaran has its own secrets -- thousands of locked doors, gardens of glass, and a tree that bears memories instead of fruit. Soon, Maya suspects her life is in danger. Yet who, besides her husband, can she trust? With the fate of the human and Otherworldly realms hanging in the balance, Maya must unravel an ancient mystery that spans reincarnated lives to save those she loves the most…including herself. A lush and vivid story that is steeped in Indian folklore and mythology. The Star-touched Queen is a novel that no reader will soon forget.”

This description does a great job of giving us a sense of the work without providing too many spoilers. Chokshi’s main selling point is that she gives us the common genre conceits: a teenage female heroine who must somehow save the world, all the while maintaining a relationship with some super mysterious, yet super sexy male character. The challenge for readers outside the genre is probably how to take the romance elements. There were definitely cringe-inducing moments for me based upon those sequences when it’s clear Maya is pining for her dark underworld lover, and I’m obviously a die-hard fan of this particular genre. Is there any way to avoid such erotic, if clichéd sensibilities in this kind of work? Perhaps not, but I figured it would be best to provide that fair warning.

Otherwise, there are some truly compelling aspects of world building here; I’m always on the lookout for the ways that authors consider and create fantastical creatures. Fortunately, Chokshi can borrow from the long-established genre of Oriental tales to populate her world. At the same time, there were many terms that I wasn’t familiar with and that give Chokshi’s fictional world a very unique cast. There’s also an interesting anthropomorphic character that emerges in the back half of the novel that Chokshi clearly had fun with, especially in relation to the dialogue given to the character. The dark comedy offered by this character and the banter between this entity and Maya was a definite high point, given the especially apocalyptic storyline that we’re being offered.

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Review Author: Stephen Hong Sohn
Review Editor: Leslie J. Fernandez

If you have any questions or want us to consider your book for review, please don’t hesitate to contact us via email!
Prof. Stephen Hong Sohn at ssohnucr@gmail.com
Leslie J. Fernandez, PhD Student in English, at lfern010@ucr.edu