A Drop of VenomReview posted October 28, 2024
Rick Riordan Presents (Disney/Hyperion), 2024. 393 pages.
Review written October 26, 2024, from a library book.
Starred Review
Here's the idea behind this book: What if Medusa's wrath was justified? The story is told by the victors, after all. A Drop of Venom combines the idea of Medusa with Indian mythology to give us one of the Nagin people with an affinity for snakes.
We've got two protagonists throughout the book. One is Manisha, a girl who when she was small was sent away from her family for her own protection when her family's home was attacked. Manisha was sent to the temple, to hide her origins and become a temple priestess. There she meets our other protagonist, the king's slayer, Pratyush.
Pratyush is the last in a line of supernatural monster slayers. His father and mother lived in hiding from the king, but when the king's soldiers found them, a monster killed him. They took Pratyush to the king, and he had to slay monsters in order for his sister to be cared for. But after his sister got married off to a noble who abused her, and she eventually died, Pratyush has lost enthusiasm for killing for the king. He wants to settle down and marry that beautiful priestess he's been flirting with at the temple. The king agrees, if he brings back the head of one last monster, the Serpent Queen who's been turning men into stone.
What Pratyush doesn't know was that while he was gone, Manisha was raped by a powerful man and kicked off the temple mountain in the clouds. But she didn't die. In fact, a pit of vipers cushioned her fall, and the snakes gave her magical powers. She has a golden snake familiar that keeps growing bigger and bigger, and she's traveling south to find her family. But she encounters people along the way, and some of them are very bad, and Manisha now has power to fight back.
There is violence in this book, and some horrible deaths. But for the most part, it's a book about the powerless fighting back against injustice.
The book is atmospheric and pulls you along with each character. Unfortunately or fortunately (there will be more!), the story is not finished with this book, though we do have a face-off between the supposed monster and the slayer.
This is a fantasy story with many overtones about justice and power. It felt good to watch Manisha coming into her power.