Warning: This review contains spoilers.
Some people believe our lives are determined by destiny or fate. We are given roles to fulfill and limitations for our aspirations. But sometimes, someone brave can break free of the status quo, hoping to achieve something different or personally meaningful.
Punita Rice’s debut novel, The River’s Daughter, follows Sahira, who lives in the town of Jaraan. A complacent woman, she never thinks of breaking away from the norm. Even though she knows she wouldn’t be happy being married off into the Daraio family and continuing on the practice of stillness, she had accepted that as her fate. Resigned to the life ahead, she begrudgingly completes each test, ritual, and ceremony that gradually strips away more of her choices. In the end, this is all to make her family happy. But what happens when she meets someone who leads a completely different life?
The Mehr’an people are seen as criminals, as a dangerous people who wrongfully allow their women to be individuals and hear and feel what the river has to say. When Sahira meets a Mehr’an musician in the town just a few days before her arranged marriage, she is enchanted. His music and his captivating gaze stay in her mind even as she tosses and turns in her bed at night. Drawn to his music and to the water’s whispers, she sneaks out to the river, where she meets the musician face to face. With every meeting with the musician and the river, she feels something beginning to awaken within her.
This also begins to manifest physically, as Sahira develops glowing blue patterns across her. body. They start small, only appearing when she is in direct contact with water. However, as her willpower grows stronger and she begins to question whether her Jaraan people’s way of life is correct, they glow brighter and stronger, even when she is distant from the river. The patterns, paired with constant dreams of her mother, of the river, and of an unknown man by the river, lead her back to the Mehr’an musician, who she learns is named Syfir. As Syfir teaches her of her mother’s past, of the river serpent goddess Naga, and of her own relation with the river, she finds it harder to conform to what the Jaraan elders wish for her to be—silent, still, property.
Forging her own path, Sahira leaves the comfort of Jaraan to search for answers and strength, and to protect Syfir. This leads her to discover her true parentage, her mother’s journey, the river that flows through her veins, and the power of Naga and the river women.
The novel and Sahira’s story are based off of the classic Punjabi folk tragedy, Mirza Sahiban. In the traditional folk story and its retellings, Mirza Sahiban becomes villainized and viewed as a betrayer. Stuck between a rock and a hard place, she chooses to break her beloved’s arrows to prevent her brothers from being killed. While her brothers remain safe, this then unfortunately leads to her beloved being killed by her brothers. In her grief, she kills herself, and the tragic love story comes to an end.
Sahira’s story in The River’s Daughter is not a retelling of this folk story, rather, it is inspired by it. Sahira is someone who seeks peace, hoping for the best outcome for everyone. However, the people of Jaraan see her as a heinous villain who has infected the women of their town. Despite this, she still fights for those women and for Jaraan, returning to the place she once called home. She confronts the elders in order to create a new society that integrates the old and new together to create harmony. Rejecting the option to run away with Syfir, she chooses to meet Naga and learn more about the river to help the people from her hometown.
Even without prior knowledge of Mirza Sahiban, The River’s Daughter is a captivating tale. Sahira is a well-written character who starts off hesitant, but becomes stronger as the story progresses. When faced with hardship, she does not wait for a solution to fall into her lap, instead taking logical steps to push forward. Despite the humiliation and trauma she has faced, she does not break. While she has moments of vulnerability and pain, she always gets back up.
Syfir and his romance with Sahira play an integral part to the story, but the novel not solely focused on romance. While Sahira’s growth and acceptance of being a daughter of the river is a result of her developing relationship with Syfir, her journey to meet Naga and save the women of Jaraan is one she undertook on her own. She loves Syfir, but she’s finally allowed to exist as an individual, not needing a man to validate her existence. Alongside her blossoming romantic relationship, Sahira also learns to love herself, her parentage, and the river.
Audiences also see other characters grow and develop, illustrating familial love, and finding love and confidence within your community. Sahira’s cousin Leela, despite being abandoned by her own mother because of her choice to accept the river’s calling, is another strong character. Despite knowing Sahira’s dreams and blue marks are wrong to the Jaraan people, Leela supports Sahira on her journey. Kaya, another young woman who accepted the river’s call, defiantly stands her ground, even when she is violently beaten and ridiculed. The fabric merchant who provided Sahira with the supplies needed for her journey, the elderly woman who sacrificed herself to help awaken Sahira, and even the Mehr’an women who taught her of her actual parentage and the history of Naga and the river; each of these women that contributed to Sahira’s journey are integral, showing their growth, strength, and resilience.
The River’s Daughter is a story of how women have held each other’s hands across cultures, across beliefs, across centuries of time, in order to uplift one another. It’s a reminder that there is strength in community, that vulnerability does not mean failure, and that no path is smooth and straight. Sometimes, it takes a few steps backwards to find a new path forward, and sometimes, it requires multiple hands to open the doors together. Regardless, Sahira, Kaya, Leela, and every other woman are proof that hard battles can be fought and won, even if not immediately.
This is a romance story, but not one where the princess waits to be rescued. For readers who yearn for a romance novel that doesn’t diminish a woman’s identity or reduce her to someone else’s, The River’s Daughter is a great read. Sahira’s story is not just about love, but also about strength, history, magic, and the courage to alter fate and shatter the confining walls of social expectations.
