In My Hands (Paperback)

Sixteen-year-old Chandra S. Chengappa, a competitive classical dancer passes for any average American teenager, working at her mother’s Ayurveda shop. But she has a monster of a secret: She can see evil in the form of the rakshasi—a demon that is supposed to exist only in South Asian folklore. 

After discovering a glowing disc hidden among a collection of ancient Indian artifacts in her mother’s yoga studio, Chandra starts to have strange visions of a past she cannot remember, and a future she wants no part of. She soon realizes the ruthless rakshasi is near and wants what she has—a map to the Golden Trishula—a powerful, celestial weapon once wielded by the Hindu Goddess Durga—that controls the past, present, and future.

When tragedy strikes, Chandra and her sister must leave their small Virginia town and go live with a family friend in a remote Indian jungle village under the control of the rakshasi. With the help of a cunning fortune teller, a fashion-forward Lambadi historian, a handsome daredevil, and a kind-hearted cow herder, Chandra must forge ahead into the unknown and prepare for the fight of her life before the people and the jungle she has fallen in love with are plunged into a supernatural darkness forever.