It’s one of those books that takes small, gradual steps towards where it wants to be. I picked it up before bed one night, it was finished before I went to bed the next.

I read this novel over the course of a day.

At other times, you feel suffocated by the heat and smoke of a fire. The way the author describes things, you can hear the crunch of leaves, the swish of skirts, the splash of water. I always find that Tasha Suri’s prose has this wonderful quality of reading very quickly, yet being full of evocative and sensory description.

I found myself appreciating that the book had done the work, considered the angles, and as a result left me deeply invested in Priya and Malini’s relationship. So, again, I felt myself rooting for something that I generally would be very opposed to - for these two characters to just get together already. Like no one of them had too much power over the other. Yet the relationship between Priya and Malini always felt very grounded. Specifically, I’m worried that an author will just… ignore them. I’m always worried about the power dynamics in relationships that go across class lines. Priya may be dangerous in a physical sense, but Malini’s cunning can kill you just as dead. Yet despite all that, she still has strength. Here’s a character that has been locked away, drugged to a stupor, sent to die out of sight of a brother that now burns women alive for pleasure. I usually have a bit of a Thing with royal characters (specifically, I usually wish they’d all die horrible deaths), but Tasha Suri managed to make Malini feel sympathetic enough that I actually managed to root for her. And with the potential to do something about it. Priya is this wonderful ball of contradictions. Not only because of the premise (which is great), but because of the characters, too.

So when you have a book like this - ancient ancestral magic, evil emperors, festering rebellion - yeah… I’m gonna love it. Not that I’ve ever done it, but I’ve thought about it a whole lot. Look, I’m all about setting empires ablaze. Together, they will set an empire ablaze. The other a powerful priestess seeking to save her family. One is a ruthless princess seeking to steal a throne. But in order to keep the truth of her past safely hidden, she works as a servant in the loathed regent’s household, biting her tongue and cleaning Malini’s chambers.īut when Malini witnesses Priya’s true nature, their destines become irrevocably tangled. Exiled by her despotic brother, Malini spends her days dreaming of vengeance while trapped in the Hirana: an ancient cliffside temple that was once the revered source of the magical deathless waters but is now little more than a decaying ruin.

Tasha suri the jasmine throne