THE SERPENTS SHADOW

THE SERPENT’S SHADOW is based on the fairy tale “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” and takes place in London in 1909. Maya Witherspoon is twenty-five years old and has just fled from India to London after the mysterious deaths of her parents. She graduated from the University of Delhi as a Doctor of Medicine at twenty-two, but the English are not so ready to accept a female foreigner as a practicing physician. She works out of her home and at a clinic, using small bits of the magic that she has always recognized but never understood. She gains many allies among the lower class in the city – dancers, prostitutes, and criminals, by never discriminating and only charging what they can afford to pay her, whether it be in money or favors. She has a strict policy of confidentiality, since she often performs forms of birth control on women that are extremely taboo in their society. The social struggles that Maya goes through are very believable and relevant to the setting of the story.

The “Seven Dwarfs” take the form of Maya’s “pets” which were passed down from her mother. They serve as protectors, and eventually she catches on to the fact that each one represents a form of a god from her culture. Indian mythology and religion are cleverly intertwined throughout the entire story, adding another dimension to the already rich depth of the plot.

The central challenge comes in the form of her parents’ killer, her aunt who is a powerful devotee of the god Kali-Durga and a wielder of the darkest magic. Fortunately, her magic is traced by the elite committee of magicians, the White Lodge, who end up as her allies as well.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book, probably because of my personal experience in the medical field. The fact that this book took place in “our world” added more of a reality, and the very real struggles that the main character is forced to overcome simply because of her gender and heritage add to the feel of the early twentieth century. I did not realize at first that the book was based on “Snow White”, but I did pick up on the subtleties such as the “magic mirror” and the old lady with the apples who poisons Maya with a syringe. I look forward to reading the other books in this series.