Recent Reads

Bijapur : Blood of the Goddess. In the second volume of Kara Dalkey's historical fiction trilogy, the story moves from the Christian Portuguese colony of Goa to the interior of 17th century India, a thicket of religious and political intrigue between ruling Mughals, native "Hindoos", and encroaching Christians, as well as between feuding petty states and an expanding centralized empire. Eroticism, treachery, and dangers both physical and spiritual await Dalkey's reluctant hero as he travels ever closer to the source of the mysterious, miraculous drug known as the "blood of the goddess" -- and as his reason for doing so becomes more personal and more compelling.

Above average historical adventure fiction, with more eroticism than in the previous volume as the story moves out of the shadow of the brutal and corrupt Goanese office of the Inquisition and into the more openly sensual culture outside its influence.