The Strange Women: A Historical Fantasy

By Bhaskar Deshmukh

The lake was most beautiful. There were beautiful swans in the lake and water was clean, greenish and just like a fine mirror showing the grand reflection. He liked the spot and said to his servants that this was the place he was searching for. He made necessary arrangements of his stay and started his artwork. He worked hard. Even their ration was exhausted, but they kept some part reserved and filled their stomachs with fruits available in the jungle. But soon they found it surprising that there were no birds in that area and the heaps of fruits were lying under every fruit tree as if the living beings had boycotted the surrounding premises of the lake. Even the stars at night they saw were strange, different and unusual. But they were so engaged in their work, they did not pay any attention to these unnatural things. It took long two weeks to complete the picture to his satisfaction and then they had a party there with the stock of wine and food that they had kept in reserve. He generously allowed his servants to drink wine with him and enjoyed the finishing of the great artwork.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 151231112X
• ISBN13: 9781512311129
• Release Date: May 2015
• Publisher: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform
• Length: 314 Pages
• Weight: 0.93 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 6.0" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

I gave up 1/3 of the way through

I didn’t finish this book. The characters are dimensionless, the conversations are stilted, the plot wanders. The strange woman (the cover says women, but the title page says woman, and there seems to be only one) is introduced early on—she is in a painting, and leaves the painting to follow the queen home. There’s a little tale of how she got into the painting, and then the story starts following several other characters who eventually end up with some connection to the queen. I gave up about 1/3 of the way in and started skimming to see if anything interesting happens. As far as I can tell, it doesn't. The “strange woman” from the painting never makes another appearance, and has nothing to do with the rest of the story, which is too bad because that was the only part of the book that was actually interesting.