Suheldev: The King Who Saved India

Today I finished another book, Amish's latest: the legend of king suheldev. 

The book was released on 20th june 2020 and is published by westland publication. It is the 8th book written by Amish and is a part of indic  chronicles series that is yet to come up with more parts.

About the Author:

Amish tripathi – A diplomat, A columnist and a bestselling author as well. He is known for his books the Shiva trilogy (The Immortals of Meluha, The Secret of the Nagas, The oath of the Vayuputras), the Ram-Chandra series (Scion of Ikshvaku, Sita: Warrior of Mithila, Raavan: Enemy of Aryavarta) and Suheldev: The King Who Saved India. He has also launched his first non-fiction book named Immortal India.

Amish's 8 books have sold over 5.5 million copies in the Indian subcontinent since 2010. Forbes India has regularly ranked Tripathi among the top 100 celebrities in India. He was listed among the 50 most powerful Indians by India Today in 2019. He is also the first author in Indian publishing history to have all 6 of his fiction books simultaneously in the top 10 of the HT-Nielsen Bookscan national bestseller list for 4 weeks in a row.

About the Book:

Blurb:


Repeated attacks by Mahmud of Ghazni and his barbaric Turkic hordes have weakened India’s northern regions. The invaders lay waste to vast swathes of the subcontinent—plundering, killing, raping, pillaging. Many of the old Indian kingdoms, tired and divided, fall to them. Those who do fight, battle with old codes of chivalry, and are unable to stop the savage Turkic army which repeatedly breaks all rules to win. Then the Turks raid and destroy one of the holiest temples in the land: the magnificent Lord Shiva temple at Somnath.

At this most desperate of times, a warrior rises to defend the nation.

King Suheldev.

The ruler of a small kingdom, he sees what must be done for his motherland, and is willing to sacrifice his all for it.

A fierce rebel. A charismatic leader. An inclusive patriot.

My Review:

For a change this time instead of mythology Amish took a road to historical fiction genre, needless to say Indian history is quite abundant still there are many names that are lost and forgotten in the modern era of fabricating the truth.

Amish, in this book brought up one of those lost legends named King Suheldev who won the battle of Baharaich against the forces of Mahmud of Ghajni.

The author describes him as a brave warrior who united the whole nation to fight against the invaders and hurl them out...there is also a love story brewing on the sidelines, it is quite beautiful to read but is not in typical Amish style.

Suheldev as a character wasn't as well developed as Amish's other story characters tend to do. There are no layers, no hidden shades in his personality. 

If you look at other books that the author has written you'll see that every single mythological character featured in his stories are more than how they were originally written. 

The whole book is beautifully immersed in the devout Indian culture which treats shiva as the supreme entity among gods since eternity and I guess that is the only plus point of the story.

And which also proves me right on something else I personally feel that Amish's niche is mythology.  

I'm not saying that he should not explore because I'm no judge of that but it would have been better if this was an individual experiment instead of a team project.

However as we talk about the writing, in the light of 7 great books written by Amish...this was just not the type of book which a reader expects  to read when it comes to the bestselling author Mr. Tripathi.

I loved his idea of bringing a historically lost hero forward and weaving a story around him that is partially fictional. The start was promising but somehow the charm was missing after a couple of chapters. 

Amish has always taken a great creative liberty with his books which usually worked well for him, but in this novel the plot seems to be something straight out of a Bollywood movie where villains and heroes fight all the time, there was a love affair mentioned in the middle which was good to read but again reminded me of a Bollywood film. 

It was all same old same old hero-villain-love plot with a twist of patriotism to garnish the figurative literary dish.

In a few words, the start was good but the story just could not hold my attention very much, the plot was rusty and overused and as a fan of Amish's earlier works I expected much more. This story just lacked the flare that usually is associated with his books. 

I hope that I'll be able to give his next novel a 5 star rating as honestly as I'm writing this one.

My Rating: 3.5/5

Buy it on Amazon