Bijapur (Blood of the Goddess, Vol. 2)

A microcosmos of India assembles in two competing caravans to seek the Blood of the Goddess, among them Thomas Chinnery, English prisoner of the Portuguese Inquisition. The Goddess is reputed to live near Bijapur, and so the two parties make their way there--to be united inextricably by the hospitable and wily Sultan Ibrahim of Bijapur. Prophecies, Sufi mysticism, herb lore, and legends (or are they histories?) gild this exotic historical novel. Kara Dalkey's storytelling is masterfully paced, dark and light, grief and hope, mundane and magical. It is well worth waiting for Volume Three and what promises to be a mesmerizingly suspenseful conclusion.