This is a beautifully written story about Ganga, goddess of the River and her son set against the backdrop of the Mahabharata. Ganga is cursed to live a mortal life and the story is about how she escapes her mortality but also how it changed her. I’m not super familiar with the original story but I was able to keep up even though there are multiple characters involved. I know Ganga is not a huge part of the Mahabharata but I like how in this story she is weaved throughout with her small interactions with the characters that have effects later on. There’s themes of duty vs justice and complex family dynamics and the toll of war. I found the mother and child dynamics hit me hard and made me think of my own relations with my baby. The arc didn’t have the family tree added (it’s available online) but I think having it added to the published version will be a great help

Thanks to NetGalley, Redhook Books and Vaishnavi Patel for this e-ARC. Goddess of the River will be released on May 21