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• Genre: Fantasy
• Age group: Adult
• Pub. date: June 10th 2021
• Format: eARC, I received a copy from the publisher which does not affect my review
• Pages: 480
• Goodreads link

Author of Empire of Sand and Realm of Ash Tasha Suri’s The Jasmine Throne, beginning a new trilogy set in a world inspired by the history and epics of India, in which a captive princess and a maidservant in possession of forbidden magic become unlikely allies on a dark journey to save their empire from the princess’s traitor brother.

Imprisoned by her dictator brother, Malini spends her days in isolation in the Hirana: an ancient temple that was once the source of the powerful, magical deathless waters — but is now little more than a decaying ruin.

Priya is a maidservant, one among several who make the treacherous journey to the top of the Hirana every night to clean Malini’s chambers. She is happy to be an anonymous drudge, so long as it keeps anyone from guessing the dangerous secret she hides.

But when Malini accidentally bears witness to Priya’s true nature, their destinies become irrevocably tangled. One is a vengeful princess seeking to depose her brother from his throne. The other is a priestess seeking to find her family. Together, they will change the fate of an empire.

I loved this. The begining was pretty slow for me so I wasn’t sure I’d love it, because we kept meeting new PoV characters and I’m not so used to that anymore. But after about the 40% mark I got in the rhythm of it and was just pausing to “oh this perfect” “this is so well done” “these characters are so good”. THIS is what I want from morally gray characters, the dynamic between Malini and Priya is so good. I can’t wait to reread it so that I can fully appreciate the first bit where I was a little lost. Let me try to turn this squee into some sentences that make sense. (LE: yeah that didn’t work out so well, this is a long ramble)

The World

It’s a secondary medieval-tech level worId inspired by India. Most of the action takes place in a city at the edge of the Parijatdvipan Empire, and the Ahiranyi province has been recently captured and colonised, it’s a sort of second class region in the empire and tension are running high on both sides. I loved how that conflict was explored from the royalty level, central power, local goverment and local people level. I saw Tasha Suri mention in an online thing that the setting is largely inspired by the Bollywood movies she grew up with, so it’s not based on one specific time and place but closer to an “generic medieval Indian inspired” (my words).. She did do cool research on stuff like weapons and those are so much fun. I thought it was really great. I particularly loved the relationships between different states within the empire and the way different religions coexist and interact. We learn some things about the politics between different nations but I’d love to learn more, their cultures seemed rich and full of lore so I hope we get to explore more in future books. It’s also very alive and organic. It’s set next to (and sometimes in) and ancient forest and plants and wood are very important to the magic, and there’s also a very nightmarish desease. Like with Suri’s previous books it was very easy for me to visualize everything and be in the book.

The characters

The society has very strict gender roles, like a lot of epic fantasy, so it was great seeing the women wield power and how even though they don’t officially have any, they still have loyal people and ways to reach out and influence things. The politics matter just as much as military strength. Or rather the politics determine who has the miliatary strength. We did get some PoVs from characters in more powerful positions and I liked thost too, except for the emperor, he can get in the bin, and we can set the bin on fire … no wait he might like that, no fire, just rotten fruits.

Like I mentioned it was hard for me to follow in the begining, I’m just not used to full cast epic fantasy anymore. Thankfully they have distinct names and personalities so once I got my bearings it was easy to keep track of. And I love them all. Pryia and Malini are the main leads and they’re just ahh, so good, the way they’re in constant conflict between how they grew up and what they want for themselves, and what is right and was is easy, and for who is the right thing right, yes, love it. This are the sort of morally gray characters that I like “what am I willing to do to achieve my goals, who am I willing to hurt, how many lives is this thing worth, will I take on this responsibility, is this manipulation justified” etc. And the way the main romantic relationship is a dance of power.

The others, that annoyed me by showing up in the begining, are great too! Bhumika, I didn’t like her at first, she’s seen a bit like the sell-out aristocrat, but I would die for her now. The strength in this woman. This one rebel dude kept annoying me all the way through tbh, he never grew on me, not even like a parasitic plant.

The story

What I liked about the story was how I couldn’t really see where it was going, so I’m not gonna tell you either. But I thought it worked very well. There’s a lot of scene setting in the first bit that down too much for me, but it made up for it in the second bit so I ended up not minding so much. And despite all the PoV’s it’s a pretty tight focus, we’re not spread across time and space, it’s just in one city and a few weeks? maybe months? but things happen pretty quickly once they get happening.

Overall thoughts

Yeah overall I loved this, I thought it was beautiful, yes i has a slow start and a slow burn but it makes up for that.

Recommended for: fans of epic fantasy looking for an anti-imperialist book, fans of slow-burns

r/fantasy Bingo squares: Forest Setting, Set in Asia, Published in 2021,