Synopsis: As a reproductive health care worker in Chicago, Nisha is barely staying afloat in the ocean of abortion bans, screaming protestors, and her own all-consuming depression.

When she escapes to the Indian art exhibit at her favorite museum for a brief respite, Nisha suddenly finds herself bleeding, disoriented, and collapsed on the ground. The last thing she remembers is the statue that beckoned her to touch it. In the days that follow, Nisha feels a strange power coursing within her, one that attracts a host of dangerous and enigmatic characters who covet it for themselves.

Facing threats both otherworldly and distinctly human, Nisha must navigate uncertain alliances to piece together the centuries-old mystery of her odd and terrifying abilities. And as danger closes in on her loved ones, community, and the clinic she’s determined to protect, Nisha must make a choice about the life she wants—and fight all the demons standing in her way to get it.

I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but things are getting pretty bad out there. In We Dance Upon Demons, Nisha Kulkarni is a Chicago college graduate who meant to go to law school and change the world, before an accident delayed her plans, and she was subsequently overwhelmed by the fall of Roe and the onslaught of patients at the independent clinic where she works. She says an abundance of things we already know about the state of the world, but what can be interpreted as a crash course in the battle for better reproductive healthcare is funneled into a compellingly solid and nuanced novel about this frustration, reconnecting with one’s heritage, and moving forward with critical work in the face of adversity.

Against this potentially overwhelming backdrop, Nisha has a biting, pessimistic voice with occasional dark humor, the prose also organically conveying how she escapes her angry melancholia. An apparent contradiction swiftly emerges: Though Nisha opens her narration by saying outright that she’s depressed and spends much more of it illustrating how hopeless everything is, she is staggeringly obstinate. She has given up on therapy, doesn’t think the system will ever adhere to basic ethics or science, and sees herself as a burden on her single mother (wrestling with whether her mother would have gotten an abortion if she could), but she still drags herself out of bed and goes to work every day (and then volunteers at Planned Parenthood on her days off!).

Deep into the supernatural storyline, author Vaishnavi Patel touches upon the idea that demons are merely manifestations or projections of human evils and turmoil, making it seem almost inevitable, in hindsight, that otherworldly powers would descend to push Nisha forward as other forces empower the opposition. As the synopsis says, Nisha accidentally inherits some of the power of Muya (who is a “small piece” of Muyalagan, the demon of ignorance in Hindu mythology) and does not trust him enough to immediately relinquish that power back to him. 

In the meantime, Muya advises her to try some kind of meditation to reach into the past and see how previous generations of women he bestowed power upon used it. Nisha accomplishes this by returning to her abandoned hobby of dancing Kathak, giving way to interlude chapters about the lives of Chandini, Tara, Laila, Heera, and Usha. It’s one of the best examples of how Nisha’s arc works, as she takes up Kathak again because of the demands of the plot, but starts wondering why she ever stopped when it is clearly helping her.

The bulk of We Dance Upon Demons takes place during the 40 days of Lent, which Nisha reports is a stretch that usually sees a surge in anti-abortion protestors, harassing patients as they come into the clinic. This time frame also highlights the understated post-colonial themes, as Nisha comes to a friendly if uneasy truce with Muya, while she is primarily hunted by the demon Asmodeus, who hails from Western tradition. All the while, Patel encapsulates the range of heartrending experiences one must see working in any branch of reproductive care in a tight, accessible fantasy story (Patel is a civil rights lawyer focusing on reproductive health as well as a bestselling author).

There are many layers in how the average reader is introduced to this intimidating landscape. As I alluded to, a lot of one-off patient characters come and go, reflecting the various financial, social, and medical circumstances that have led them to seek an abortion, and some stories are incredibly harrowing. Some women come for an abortion but still judge others for getting one. Some protestors will resort to violence or truly disgusting arguments; others have an actual moral code. Nisha, at one point, reflects on a friend from college who was pro-life in a way she wishes all pro-life people would be, supporting reforms in healthcare and childcare that would alleviate the need for abortions. There are subplots involving people who “change sides” both ways, showing how this might happen.

The supernatural and the clinic’s narrative twist together, it not always being clear where one ends and the other begins, which serves this book well. If you are going to tell a contemporary fantasy story that is actually supposed to be about a social issue, it should justify the fantasy element being there by enhancing the civil rights battle. And there are a lot of discussions happening in this book about everything from broader U.S policy to Nisha’s troubles navigating her largely conservative South Asian community. It’s a rich text that addresses how all these issues intersect and overlap, while still being entertaining in its fantasy spin. 

A problem, however, is that the overall pacing doesn’t entirely work, with Nisha spending most of the novel cycling through days at work and nights dancing her way into the past and researching demons online, before the narrative sprints to its shocking conclusion. The ending is a familiar “look inside and call upon your power” moment that Nisha theoretically could have done at any time; she only does it now because the story needs her to. Additionally, some tension around the midway mark is derived from a cliched misunderstanding that is shortly hashed over; I also felt like Nisha’s depression as a real medical condition was quickly forgotten.

We Dance Upon Demons is actually a very quick read (I was worried about having three books stacked up to read for reviewing purposes before realising I would easily get through this in a weekend) that ends on a surprisingly cynical but determined note. Tragedy strikes, and in a way, the story isn’t over, because the battle for reproductive rights is not over. But Nisha’s perspective reveals how she finds hope and support in unexpected places, and maybe needed something, anything to happen to jolt her so she can keep going.

We Dance Upon Demons is due for publication on 18th June – you can pre-order your copy on Bookshop.org