The Serpent's Secret

Kiranmala turns twelve in Parsippany, New Jersey, where she is an ordinary sixth grader. Then her parents disappear, and a drooling rakkhosh demon crashes through the kitchen intending to eat her. The bedtime stories her parents told her, it turns out, hold some truth.

Kiranmala is a real Indian princess, born in a secret place outside this world. She is pulled into another dimension full of magic, winged horses, moving maps and talkative, annoying birds.

There she has to solve riddles and outwit demons while keeping clear of the Serpent King of the underworld and the Rakkhoshi Queen. Her goal is to find her parents and save her own world and the one beyond it.

This is a middle-grade fantasy adventure built on Bengali folktales and string theory. It moves fast, mixes suburban New Jersey with a magical kingdom, and has a comic edge. It is the first book in the Kiranmala and the Kingdom Beyond series.