Publisher: Orbit
Publication Date: June 8th 202
Rating:
Goodreads Synopsis:
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.
Review:
A few
housekeeping items -
TRIGGER WARNINGs - This book contains elements of ritual suicide, death, graphic fight scenes, burning, and characters that are risking their own death frequently.
I heard about this book through a panel with the author and was so excited to get it from Netgalley this summer. Sadly, it took me a while to pick it up because I was very hyped to read it... and now I can say that I might have gotten into my own head and had too much hype.
This book started off beautifully. It was a new world, Indian in premise, with a sapphic love story ahead and I was running on adrenaline to get into it. As the book progressed, I found it so hard to follow. Not only are there a billion POVs to follow that pop up throughout the book, but there are also various religions, lands, rebel groups, and locations to remember and since I didn't have a physical copy of the book it was really hard to flip back to work it all out. (I have heard some reviewers mentioning they had a flow chart, and I am sad that I didn't think to get one running in the beginning but I read before bed too so it probably wouldn't have worked for me either.) I found out that at the end of the book there is a list of names and explanations about who everyone is - that would have been very helpful to know, but on an ebook it is difficult to flip back and forth.
My biggest issue with this book was not the confusion though, it was that the pace was just so slow. Every time I thought there would be an action scene it fizzled out almost before it started. I know that this is the first of a series and they generally build to a grand war, but I needed more from this book to really keep me with the series past book one and it did not deliver that.
The author attempted to build this big,
beautiful world ensnared with fear over their ruler, but there was a lot of
telling and not showing and that broke the illusion. I would have really liked
to also have the Emperor’s POV, to show us his evil nature versus everyone just
talking about it. There were other instances where she did show things and I
don’t know that they were necessary, for example Ashok. I am not sure that he
needed to be in the story for it to progress.
All that said, I did finish the book. It took everything I had to give it a full fighting chance, but I doubt that I will continue with the series.
No comments:
Post a Comment