Yama’s Lieutenant and the Stone Witch by Anuja Chandramouli / Books Teacup and Reviews

Published: July 24th 2017 by Penguin Random House India

Read Date: August 29th 2017

Stars: 5/5

This is second book of Yama’s lieutenant Saga and should be read in continuation of the first book, Yama’s Lieutenant.
If you haven’t read my review on first book, you can read it here- Yama’s Lieutenant by Anuja Chandramouli.

Agni- Yama’s Lieutenant, is still not over the loss of his twin sister. Tireless lonely work of tracking down the evil spirits and demons and sending them back to Yama’s hell to restore peace on earth, and Dharami- Land spirit and Minothi- Kritya wielder of earth magic, are the only companion and his best friends, are only things that keeping him away from the grief.
Just after finishing the task of saving the world from necromancer, another bigger task has been assigned to Agni and this time he needs to save the world from the stone witch who has created army of demonic creatures from humans using the magic of stones.
Humans are on the brink of extinction.
To stop this witch Agni need to go back in time to stop the witch and for that he need to find Samaykalas- the time keepers, whom no one has seen. It is forbidden to both mortals and immortals to contact them and punishment in doing so is death.
How is Agni going to find this time keepers and why he need to go back in time? What is the story of the stones and the stone witch?

What’s in the book I said in the blurb. Now what’s it about. –
The story in this book was about Agni’s constant struggle of getting over the loss with dangerous fight with demons and spirits with heart wrenching stories and history of characters in the book, horrifying apocalyptic thoughts and act of Stone Witch, and continuation of book written by Varu (Agni’s twin sister). Amazing concept and writing by author.
Alert: There is lot of gory details and dark story of characters’ life so harden your heart.
For me it was totally fine. In fact, it was little less dark than previous book. I’m starting to like this kind of dark stories.

“… I’m saying that if we can find it in ourselves to be miserable even when things are actually pretty good then there should be no difficulty being happy even when there is gloom and doom all around us.“

Brilliant! Right from the hero, side characters to the villain, all characters were written creatively with their detailed life story and appearance. Awee! I loved Agni in this book so much. Our whiny, gloomy doomy hero of first book has turned out witty and logical in this one. He was sarcastic in the first book also but the grief was making his comments rude and sarcastic. In this book company of Dharami and Minothy has changed him and it was visible here. I salute author for writing this character so effectively. And of course there is development in this character. Those two girls of Agni, Dharami and Minothy just gave life to book and Agni. They were more open and came out of their shell in this book.
Another my favorite character of the book was Dhumorna, Yama’s wife. While in first book I admired Yama for his love towards his twin, all that admiration was drawn to Dhumorna in this book. I didn’t like decisions of Yama and silver goddess.
There was entry of new characters as well who played important role in the book and I liked them. No characters went unnoticed even if that character was only for one chapter. (Actually event that happened with the character was more important in the book but narration of that event through the character’s perspective made it unique and interesting.)

“ ‘They say that I’m black like you, the color of sin. When I replied father is also like me, they said it is different for males. What does that mean?’

‘It means you should not listen to the garbage spewed by fools with filthy minds. You are beautiful and special! Don’t ever let anyone tell you otherwise… Usually it has less to do with you and more to do with their personal demons.’ “

Cover of the book. I wanted a book with skull and birds flying on the cover and I got it. Ah! and that witch on the back cover. Isn’t it just perfect for the theme of book?
Writing of course. Though it felt easier to read after the first book. In first one I was googling words at every paragraph. In this one it was once or twice a page. Maybe because now I’m more aware of writing style of author and like her way of using words, it’s definitely not easy like rest of Indian authors but is creative and very unique.
Poverty, heart touching story of character, cruelty, and brutal murder was just perfect start of the book. As I said earlier, every character had a story and all those story were heart wrenching specially story of Upakshina and Ram Chandra was horrible. I loved reading all those stories. It was one thing common in whole saga. Agni’s encounter with Upakshina was written very nicely, tense moment with wittiness of Agni made it amazing. Descriptions of ruined places by demon, nightmarish visions, Eagle’s Nest, beautiful palace of witch, apocalypse of world, and battle and torture scenes created perfect horrifying HD scenes in my mind. I liked philosophical part in the book and that memory of Agni and Varu’s talk about their mother was funny. That memory part also gave the glimpse of what Agni was before death of his sister. I liked to know more about him before he became Yama’s lieutenant.
The main story of history of witch and magical stones and how she made a recipe of demonic creature from human was terrific.
Varu’s book and story of Dhumorna in that was heart of the story. It was best thing in the book and so mesmerizing that I never wanted it to end. In first book it told the story of twins Yama and Yami and how Yama made ruler of underworld, while in this book it told married life of Yama, how Rodhana was destroyed and worst demons of hell escaped all trough voice of Dhumorna. This part connected whole saga and made the story of both the books more clear. It answered all questions that I had for first and second book- why Silver Goddess approached Agni, why it was necessary to send Nitara safely to hell and why death of stone witch was necessary.
How jealousy, loneliness, blind adherence to Dharma, lack of love, and freedom can lead characters astray and make everything worse, how kindness, putting yourself in someone’s place, compassion and love can save all the destruction, was perfectly displayed through different stories in this book.
Climax and End– totally unexpected it was bitter sweet sad and yet amazing.
No! No! I want read more. It looked like this saga ends here. And I seriously don’t want it end. Evil is never going to end in this world, we need Agni to save us, right? Right? Please someone say YES so that author write more of Agni’s adventure.

I loved this book even more than the first one. <3

Overall, adventurous mythical saga that will show you the glimpse of hell and darkness on earth and still will make you fall in love with it. I know it sounds weird but it’s definitely amazing. Anyone who love Indian mythology and this type of story would love to read this book.