A solid 3.5 stars. Finally picked up the sequel for the [b:The Twentieth Wife|27298|The Twentieth Wife (Taj Mahal Trilogy, #1)|Indu Sundaresan|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1441836224s/27298.jpg|27945] and i was not disappointed! Although I am certainly not the target audience as I usually loathe love stories, I kind of made an exception here. This one ends the story for mehrunnisa in a thrilling story, surprisingly accurate historically.

I actually enjoyed this book a lot more than the first book in the series, The Twentieth Wife. The first book irritated me because I felt like the courtship between Mehrunissa and Salim/Jahangir felt very strained and inauthentic. It's hard to enjoy a book focused on the marriage plot when you don't buy the romance.

This book begun with Mehrunissa already in power as Empress Nur Jahan and was mainly about her scrabble for power and increasingly complex intrigues. There were a bunch of historical and semi-mythical stories about Nur Jahan that Indu Sundaresan sought to fictionalize and somewhat explain. It was enjoyable, especially since I know so little about the Moghul Empire in the first place.

All in all, I think this was an improvement over the first book and am excited to read the author's other novels.

আগের বইটার চেয়ে একটু কম পছন্দ হলো। কাহিনীটা বেশিই দ্রুত এগিয়ে গেছে মনে হচ্ছিল, সেই সাথে বোধহয় মেহেরুন্নিসার প্রতি টানের কারণে কাহিনীটা ঠিক হজম করতেও কষ্ট হচ্ছিল।

I loved the first book so very much I was really excited to read this one. Sadly it left me disappointed. In the end I didn't feel a lot of emotion for any of the characters that I had come to love in the first book. Perhaps the author was trying to put too much into this book but it felt rushed at times and the characters didn't come to life for me like they did in her first book. Still she is a gifted author and I would pick another of her books based on what I have read to this point.

still beautifully written, still historically amazing. I think I just liked the character less at this point in her life. :)