Book Blurb:
In an alternate 19th century, there are two warring continents on an reimagined earth: the scientific Anglica (England) and magical Bharata (India). Emboldened by her grandfather�s final whispered secret of a magical lotus, Tori Harding, a young Victorian woman and aspiring botanist, must journey to Bharata, with its magics, intrigues and ghosts, to claim her fate. There she will face a choice between two suitors and two irreconcilable realms.
In a magic-infused world of silver tigers, demon birds and enduring gods, as a great native mutiny sweeps over the continent, Tori will find the thing she most desires, less perfect than she had hoped and stranger than she could have dreamed.
An excerpt from A Thousand Perfect Things
Tori's
stomach clenched as she now saw before her a woman in a green sari facing away.
Streaming out from the woman's head, her long hair was writhing in an
impossible way, as though alive. The sight both sickened and fascinated her.
The woman walked slowly away in a disconcerting gliding motion. Afraid yet
intrigued, Tori followed the woman to the garden wall.
"Come, beti," the woman whispered, though the whisper was in Tori's
ear, not fifteen yards away.
Tori approached. The woman's long
hair was shot with gray, her face deeply lined.
They stood regarding one another.
Slowly, and to Tori's relief, the long hair came to rest around the woman's
shoulders. It seemed to Tori that the frantic hair warned of discontent, and
must put Tori on warning that the apparition could do violence. Suddenly,
alarming noises issued from behind the zenana wall--squealing almost at the
limits of hearing. Filaments of the woman's hair rose again.
Tori backed up.
"They cannot hurt you, or even
see you, beti." The voice was a
breath in Tori's ear, but the woman's lips were not moving.
"Why are you trying to scare
me?" she managed to say, her voice gone pinched and high. The squealing
behind the door grew louder. At that, the woman slammed a fist against the
wooden door, all but shattering Tori's resolve to stay.
The noise stopped.
"They do not wish for me to be
long gone." Bits of dust fell off the door.
Tori looked down to find that the
woman's feet were not actually touching the ground. Merciful God. Tori could
not move, nor swallow, nor keep from staring.
The whisper again: "Jai will be
showing you where to go. You should be trusting only him, beti."
The squealing resumed, louder now.
The woman placed her hand on the latch of the door, and as she did so, her hair
swept in that direction.
Tori did not want to see what was on
the other side of that door.
She looked desperately behind
herself for her companions, but she was alone. As she turned back to locate the
woman in green, all that remained of her was a shred of forest-colored sari
sliding through a crack in the door.
