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Rick Riordan launched his imprint, Rick Riordan Presents (dedicated to providing entertaining middle grade fiction based on various world mythologies) with Aru Shah and the End of Time, written by best-selling author Roshani Chokshi. It delves into Hindu mythology and is described as a mix of Riordan’s own Percy Jackson series and the Sailor Moon franchise. It’s an imaginative novel that puts girl power and diverse protagonists front and center. .

“Have you ever read a book and thought, Wow, I wish I’d written that!?” said Riordan in the foreword. “For me, Aru Shah and the End of Time is one of those books”. “It has everything I like: humor, action, great characters, and, of course, awesome mythology!.”

Roshani will be chatting about Aru Shah and the Tree of Life, the third book in the Hindu-based, best-selling Pandava series, in which Aru and her cohorts, Mini, Brynne, and Aiden—and now a pair of twins—each search the Otherworld for Kalpavriksha, the wish-granting tree.

War between the devas and the demons is imminent, and the Otherworld is on high alert. Fourteen-year-old Aru Shah and her friends are sent on a mission to rescue two "targets," one of whom is about to utter a prophecy that could mean the difference between victory and defeat. Turns out the targets, a pair of twins, are the newest Pandava sisters, though the prophecy says that one sister is not true. When the Pandavas fail to prevent the prophecy from reaching the Sleeper's ears, the heavenly attendants ask them to step aside. Aru believes that the only way to put the shine back on their brand is to find the Kalpavriksha, the wish-granting tree that came out of the Ocean of Milk when it was churned. If she can reach it before the Sleeper, perhaps he can turn everything around with one wish. Careful what you wish for, Aru . . .

Roshani Chokshi is the author of the instant New York Times best-selling books in the Pandava series, Aru Shah and the End of Time, and its sequel, Aru Shah and the Song of Death. She also wrote the New York Times best-selling YA books The Star-Touched Queen and The Gilded Wolves. She studied fairy tales in college, and she has a pet luck dragon that looks suspiciously like a Great Pyrenees dog. The Pandava novels were inspired by the stories her grandmother told her as well as Roshani's all-consuming love for Sailor Moon.