WARNING! INEVITABLE SPOILERS BELOW!

We venture downriver once again, and this time into the ocean, as Asta, Jayan, and Charu visit the Gampoban brothers birthplace, Sindhupat Island. Here, the Kumasagi series revisits long buried events, memories of transgressions hidden from public knowledge—now reveled to Asta, the budding prodigal mystic, as she faces up against Najat’s abusive father, former mystic diver Delan. But that’s not all; for among the abuses unearthed, Asta discovers the truth beneath the presumedly dead Sindhupat Nakshidra grotto—what caused its dormancy, and how it might be reawakened. Furthermore, there is the matter of Asta’s and Najat’s be-diksha, a split and switched bit of kana, or soul, that itself turns out to be the key to resurrecting the Sidhupat destin cove. Oh! And let us not forget to looming threat that is Jayan’s festering wound.

If you cannot tell from the short plot synopsis, Sindhupat is about as long as the three prior novels combined and covers multiple subplots each nearly as thick as the central forbidden romance between Asta and Najat. Similarly to Kandargiri, there is a slew of characters, old and new, to match the expanse of this tome of a novel. Likewise, the setting—including some of the workings of the soft-spiritual-magic, are explored in greater depth.

However, despite the expanse of new ground covered, Sindhupat feels very similar to the previous novels Destin, and Kandargiri—more so the latter than the former, as shall be explained.

I’ll begin with the setting, as the world-building is quite thorough in this entry into the saga. In fact, Sindhupat perhaps adds the most despite much of the world being established by the prior three novels. This is a consequence of two factors: the new locale in which most of the narrative takes place; and the extensive use of psychic powers used by Delan to abuse young Najat, used to repair the grotto, and used to restore Asta’s kana.

In regard to describing the island of Sindhupat, Sheu does the expected, and she does so fairly well. Asta wanders blindly face-first into culture shock over and over—Jayan is no help—providing a context of conflict around which the set pieces can be revealed to the reader, such as the baths being public and not separated by sex, the lack of the use of mudras, etc. The description of the geography of the island is likewise paced well. The unique areas explored feel distinct from one another, whether they be rocky terrain like the shells of turtles, the high bluffs used for spiritual retreat, or the out-of-the-way Nakshidra grotto with its ancient carvings. Everything this coherent and believable. The peoples of Sindhupat, just as those of Shakti Lake or Kandargiri, feel as though they could really be real. That being said, I had a difficult time feeling invested in the setting. This was mostly due to the discursion-heavy descriptions similar to those featured in Destin, Kandargiri,  and the latter third of Wife. Sheu could have used much more figurative language while painting her world, as she did in the first two thirds of Wife. Likely, though, the sheer length of Sindhupat made the attention to prose required to accomplish this impractical for the time frame in which the book was written.

As for the mystic powers, my critique is largely the reverse of the other aspect of the expanded setting. Where the world itself is very rich and consistent, I found the use of psychic abilities in Sindhupat to be arbitrary contrivances to forward the plot. This is because many of the uses have not been set-up in the prior novels. Astral projection, mind reading, mind control, putting people to sleep, and making oneself and other imperceptible all follow a logic and motif. Where the logic breaks is in the jump from the spiritual to the physical—a consequence of the Nakshidra grotto subplot. The grotto was believed to have been damaged by an earthquake, but it is revealed that Najat and Jayan’s father, Delan, cauterized physical pores in rocks which supplied the Nakshidra with blood-water which via veins which connect to all the grottos, physically but also spiritually in a kind of mind-body dualism but for…energy? Ætherial substance? And on top of this dualism, there is the instance of Asta hijacking Delan as he attempts to hijack a connection between Asta and Najat: which itself is fine; that part makes perfect sense. What feels off is when Asta, abusing Delan’s power to physically open the blood supply to the destin cove from the grotto, physically breaks Delan’s foot. Now, if the bone breaking had been a consequence of involuntary muscular contractions in consequence of psychic possession, that would make sense, but then there is the physical yet also spiritual dualistic repair of the veins connection the grottos and coves. This felt like a forced and unexplained change in the nature of the magic of this world—a change made to further a subplot which did not seem to serve the central plot at all.

The Kumasagi saga is a star-crossed, forbidden romance relationship-triangle at heart (EDIT: not a love-triangle—as I’ve helpfully been corrected by fellow author Matt Waterhouse; go check him out—because Asta never loved Jayan, nor he her). The prologue of Destin establishes this in no time flat, and the strengths of this series plot reinforces this analysis. When the plot focuses on the relationships between Asta and Najat as well as Asta and Jayan, the pacing feel perfect. During these scenes, I feel quiet invested, and it is for this reason I enjoyed Wife the most of all the novels. This is also the reason why I enjoyed Kandargiri the least—it deviated most heavily from the central conflict—where the real stakes and tension rest. Sindhupat is strong where its conflict centers on said central conflict, and it grinds to a near-halt almost everywhere else.

I am confident in saying that Sindhupat could have been one third of its length, and it would have been more than three times as enjoyable. The Delan subplot should have been more interesting than it was, but it was connected so firmly to the Nakshidra grotto disaster and repair that it lost its relevance. What happened between Delan and Najat does not impact Asta’s relationship with Najat, or even Jayan for that matter, at all. Had she never met Delan and never discovered what happened to Najat, their love confession at the end would have been no different. This is because the Gampoban backstory gets chained to the rocks, so to say. Delan used the Nakshidra to try to see his recently departed wife at the Ayudena, damaging it (he did the same thing to Najat, but notice how he could not have and the plot would remain the same). The damage made the Nakshidra at Sindhupat dormant and the destin cove barren. When Asta arrives on the island, the grotto calls to her. For reasons unknown, she is supposed to be the one to reawaken it with her missing piece of kana. This subplot occupies a huge section of the book, over which Asta improves her relationships with her lost sister Raya and the cartoonishly grumpy Beneviya. By the end, the Nakshidra is restored and the destin cove is on the road to recovery. It is revealed to the islanders that Delan was at fault for the prior damage, but Asta lets him take the credit for fixing the connection between the Nakshidra and the cove. Then Asta goes home, and none of this matters anymore.

If Asta had arrived at Sindhupat, been told by Master Gujan that she needs to return to fix her kana, then turned around and went back, the ending could have been exactly the same. This totally disconnect of the subplot from the main plot made the very, very extensive scenes of Asta repairing the veins crawl by at a snails pace. It was very hard to care about the repair. The islanders were not likeable characters, and the fate of the place held no sway over the story ongoing from Destin to Wife.

And I have to say, even if the scenes of repairing the veins had been tied back to the major conflict, they still would have dragged because it did not feel as though anything was at stake. Sure, the Nakshidra would have stayed dormant and the cove barren, but they were presumed dead before Asta arrived. Had Asta failed, nothing would have changed, meaning that said failure would have no emotional weight for the reader, because it wouldn’t be Asta’s fault any more than it would be anyone’s but Delan’s—and his fate, as mentioned, doesn’t carry any relevance to the plot.

But I’m being excessively critical here. There are many spots where the plot really grabbed me, and the ending did in fact pull me in. The stand-off between Najat and the Mahasagi kept me turning pages, especially as more of his history is revealed in the process.

That moves us to the characters. Asta, Jayan, and Charu are most central, with Najat being sidelined a bit. Asta’s character develops quite a lot over the course of the book, largely via her contact with Delan (which is good writing but for the aforementioned plot issue). Charu is likeable throughout, and he serves as a good foil to Jayan when they are both present. Jayan’s character, however, gets less and less likeable the longer he appears on the page. Where he started out as the irresponsible explorer, he has now degenerated into a kind of desperate, oblivious, narcissistic sociopath. Any sympathy for his character is gone by the time he and Asta reach Sindhupat, and active loathing sets in by the end as his lies and manipulations pile on. Moreso even than Delan, he has become the villain of the saga—which, honestly, I’m not impressed with. It feels like squandered potential. What could have been a heart-wrench decision for Asta, loyalty to her husband or love for his brother, has been reduced to an obvious black-and-white situation. Of course Asta should abandon Jayan for Najat—which flattens all their characters instead of rounding them.

As for the islanders, Raya and Beneviya and the rest, I’m not all that interested in them, in the same way that most of the cast of Kandagiri became irrelevant by the end of that novel. Their stories aren’t actually important to Asta’s and Najats.

I could also mention the rounding of Mahasagi Tebhan’s character at the end, as well as that of Amala Vengar’s, but I actually think the depth added to them only made them less likable distractions to the plot.

Overall, I enjoyed the central story, and I found the world-building amazingly thorough and mostly coherent. However, the subplots proved a major burden to read, and the mysticism lost its believability because of its use to fulfill those subplots. Asta’s improved courage was welcome, though her psychic super-power-up felt arbitrary. I would have much rather seen her develop culturally as a means of improving her relationships with Raya and Beneviya. That being said, I was very happy with Asta’s and Najat’s confession of love at the end, and I am intrigued to see how they are going to come together while under the direct and knowing watch of the Amalas and the Mahasagi—or even if they will, as Asta is already pregnant with Jayan’s child, as was prophesied by Najat’s and Jayan’s mother, Jeniya. And will the rest of her foresight come true? Will the new baby have to suffer being raised by Delan? These questions bode well for the next novel in the series, which I will for certain read.

Click the link on the image above to grab your very own copy of Kumasagi part 4: Sindhupat.