Book Summary and Reviews of Ten Incarnations of Rebellion by Vaishnavi Patel

Book Summary

From the New York Times bestselling author of Kaikeyi comes an epic and daring novel that imagines an alternate version of 1960s India that was never liberated from the British, and a young woman's struggle to change the tides of history.

Kalki Divekar grows up a daughter of Kingston—a city the British built on the ashes of Bombay. The older generation, including her father, have been lost to the brutal hunt for rebels. Young men are drafted to fight wars they will never return from. And the people of her city are more interested in fighting one another than facing their true oppressors.

When tragedy strikes close to home, Kalki begins to play a dangerous game with small acts of resistance, tempered by cautious, level-headed Yashu and fortified by Fauzia, whose dreams of the future awaken Kalki's heart. Together, they found Kingston's new independence movement, obtaining jobs working for the British while secretly planning to destroy the empire from the inside out. But one wrong move means certain death, and when facing threats from all quarters, Kalki must decide whether it's more important to be a hero or to survive.

Set over the course of a decade and told as ten moments from Kalki's life that mirror the Dashavatara, the ten avatars of Vishnu, Ten Incarnations of Rebellion is a sweeping, deeply felt speculative novel of empowerment, friendship, self-determination, and the true meaning of freedom.