The Jasmine Throne
Ratings136
Average rating4
I have been pretty upset for many days now because I kept seeing everyone receiving the ARC of this much awaited fantasy novel but I wasn't. But it's finally in my hands and I couldn't waste another before I got to it. And wow this was worth all the angst.
I really loved Tasha's Ambha duology but I found it very difficult to review them, because I didn't know how to say anything except wow. And this beginning of a new fantasy trilogy is no different. But I can also see how different this story is from her previous works. While both Empire of Sand and Realm of Ash were slow burn romances with themes of colonialism and oppression and these themes exist in this book as well, The Jasmine Throne is much more fast paced and exquisitely crafted which will literally leave you breathless with awe at many moments. The writing is quite evocative, particularly when the author describes the rot destroying the land as well the horrifying conditions of the people - it really hit me hard to see the atrocities committed in the name of faith and empire.
This world is also very deftly built - we get to know a bit of the history of the various kingdoms which make up the empire, the major power players, the differences in faiths of people across the kingdoms and most importantly, how colonization destroys cultures and cuts off people from their roots, while also imposing their rigid religious bigotry and misogyny on everybody. Tasha handles with a lot of depth and sensitivity this aspect of oppression and how it eats away at the conscience and will of the people who are constantly pushed down and mistreated and made to feel less than. The underlying theme of this story is also power - what will anyone do when they are in a position of power, what price will they pay, who will they sacrifice at the altar of faith and justice and empire, and who actually deserves the power to reshape lives and kingdoms. It's a fine balance how the author explores these different ideas of power and very thought provoking for us readers as well.
And we see this excellent story play out though the eyes of an excellent ensemble - a diverse group of characters each with their own motivations and beliefs, each one on their own path of fulfilling their fate and finding justice for what they have been denied. Malini is a princess in exile who knows her emperor brother is sadistic, and wants to do whatever she can to make sure he is deposed and replaced by a better person. She is formidable and cunning, a strategist who knows all the cards she needs to play to achieve her goals, but in her heart is someone who wants a better ruler for the empire. Whether she wants it as revenge for all the trauma she has been subjected to by her brother, or out of the benevolence of her heart for the sake of the people, is something we have to discern for ourselves.
Priya on the other hand is living as a maid servant, trying whatever she can within her modest means to help the children who are starving and ill in her kingdom. This is the story of her discovering her powers, and realizing how she can use them to better the lives of her people who have suffered for too long. At every turn, she has to weigh what she wants to do with her power and the author really succeeds in showing us her true heart and what kind of a person she would be when having to choose between lives and vengeance.
The romance between these two is a delicious slow burn, navigating the line between how a relationship can develop between a Princess who has to completely depend on the maid to save her life, and how it progresses when the princess has something more to offer on account of her station. Their relationship is filled with yearning and angst, with a bit of a forbidden element to give it more gravitas, and we are always on our toes wondering if they will make it together or sacrifice the other to achieve their ambitions.
Rounding out this excellent duo and their love story is a whole host of supporting characters, a high born lady with her own forbidden magic who wants to save her land and people, an irrelevant prince of a kingdom who wants to see his destiny fulfilled, a rebel leader who would pay any price for power and liberation, an abdicated prince who is not sure if he wants to take up his title and responsibility again for the sake of his people, and a sadistic emperor in the background who wants to build his empire on the pyres of women and in the name of his depraved faith. Despite so many characters and POVs, the author manages to keep us hooked to the story and it only feels like something we wanna get lost in, not ever overwhelming.
In conclusion, this is a great beginning to a new fantasy world. You will obviously not give this a miss if you are already a fan of the author. But if haven't read her previous books, and are looking for an epic fantasy full of strong female characters trying to right the wrongs of their world, an exploration of the depravities of colonization and the corruption of power and faith, and a beautiful sapphic romance borne out of adversity; then you don't have to look further than this.
honestly i think i just couldn't handle the darker aspects of this book. the story itself was compelling and i was beginning to get invested in the main couple's story but like. i suppose i just cant connect with a story thats just “awful awful awful awful” for the whole book. i need some sort of hope but it's just constant racism, sexism, abuse, trauma etc etc. maybe i'll come back to this someday but one particular scene i just read kinda soured me on the whole story, so i don't know.
I can't believe I didn't read this sooner, this was so good!
The first 50-70 pages were difficult with the amount of world building, but the rest of the book was fantastic and everytime I put it down I was desperate to pick it back up.
surprisingly not that bad but if I were the main character and the only visual descriptor the narrator could come up with for me was “crooked nose” I think I'd kill myself
The Jasmine Throne feels refreshing to read. I really liked to discover this universe and it's magic system.
The good :
- The refreshing fantasy setting
- The intriguing political plot
- the magic system
- Character relationships, it's nice to see some W/W rep.
The bad :
- unnecessary lenght, especially in the middle
- Too much PoV, it breaks the rythm sometimes and I would have loved to have more of the main characters instead.
Overall a solid first book, looking forward to read the next book !
Loved the India-inspired setting in the book. With characters named Priya, Bhumika and Ashok, the story is a delight to read (though sometimes the internal monologues get too repetitive and tedious.)
Wow! This was a good book. I loved the story and the setting. I was entranced and can't wait to go on to the next one, it might be a while though.
Raised the bar for every fantasy I will read in the future. Every romance too to be honest.
can be slow, but everything is great, especially the characters, so I'm not complaining
I thoroughly enjoyed Tasha Suri's writing. It was fast paced enough that I felt enwrapped in what was going to happen next but was peppered enough with slower scenes that made you have a breather. The world building was intriguing and Suri's description of the nature of Ahiranya's magic was delicious. Few authors I've read have been able to capture the feeling of the magic of their worlds. When characters talked about how they could feel the land and the power from the earth, I could feel the land and the power from the earth.
The complex character relationships was also wonderfully well done. I always get frustrated with dialogue in books where they seem unrealistic or certain dialogue is/isn't said purely for plot (such as miscommunication tropes) but Suri always made the characters say exactly what should have been said and it was so satisfying. That may not make sense but once you read the book you'll understand. There are some truly satisfying scenes that make you go “Yes! Finally! Somebody said it!”
The fact that the main characters were realistically complex and flawed made them even more likable. Even when characters made decisions I didn't want them to make, I was eating it up.
As someone who's read a lot of fantasy, it was refreshing to read a story set in a rich world that isn't set in a European Centric environment. I learnt a lot about ancient Indian culture for which I am truly grateful for. A fantastic read and one I will be recommending to everyone I talk to.
The story is a mix of fantasy and politics with a maidservant attempting to reclaim her magical powers who stumbles across a princess imprisoned by her own brother. With some strong female leads plus a lesbian romance this reminds me of The Priory of the Orange Tree. It's hard to put my finger on why but I didn't quite enjoy it as much as that one - it might be that I found it a bit harder to follow along with at the beginning? - hence the 4 stars.
After a lot of thought, I think I figured out why I had trouble connecting with this book and with a lot of the epic fantasy I've tried recently, and I think the answer is HBO. I feel like every time I read a newer fantasy, it's structured exactly like a multi-series HBO epic drama, and while that can be fun, and there's certainly a place for it, the story doesn't seem to need the novel. It doesn't want to be a novel at all, and so the actual writing just doesn't quite step up as high as I would like.
It has a lot of great elements: Southeast Asian setting, complicated characters, well-crafted political intrigue. But I kept seeing how I was being set up for the next volume/season two, how the visuals of the rot or the Hirana would work on a screen where the words don't really bring them to life. I don't know. Maybe I'm just a big jaded. I'm still giving it 4 stars as I don't think it's a bad book by any stretch of the imagination, and if you want to read big budget HBO fantasy, this is a perfect fit, but for me, I just never felt super connected to anything and probably won't continue on in the series.
Also, I know every pregnancy and birth experience is different... but like, no. None of that plotline worked for me at all.
An okay fantasy story set in an Indian like setting.
Not normally my type of Fantasy, but it has a few good moments.
The blurb made this sound a bit more spicy than it turned out to be. If you came for the sexy times then you'd be disappointed.
I did enjoy the book, but didn't enjoy it enough to read the sequels.
#JennyGuyColvin
On the positive side, there is some great world-building, taking inspiration for a non-typical (in my experience) culture.
On the negative side, at several points while listening to the audiobook I would get distracted by some external event only to realise, upon returning my attention to the book, that I had missed nothing; I had no need to rewind. There were large swathes of this book that appeared to be there simply to fill the space between largely predictable events. Also, I did not buy the relationship between the two main characters in the slightest; they both seemed to have their own motives and used each other as necessary. At no point did there appear to any basis for their love (other than maybe in a Stockholm Syndrome sense).
This is obviously setup as a prequel, but unfortunately I have no interest to see what happens next.
So, a 3 start review for an ultimately meh book, with maybe an additional half a star for the world building.
After a somewhat slow and confusing start, this turned into a high stakes epic fantasy and I highly recommend this one. This could be for folks who like strategy and power struggles and multi-POVs. If you're a single-POV person I don't think this will work for you.
For most of this book, it was firmly in the three star category. It had so many interesting things, but it was not fully clicking on a few levels. But the last 100 or so pages were really good, and left the series in a very interesting place. Now that the set-up and characters are ready to go, I'm excited for this series to really go places in the sequels. The book follows two women; Priya, a maid in the service of the Regent's wife and a mysterious past, and Malini, the sister of the crazy emperor (think Mad King Aerys from ASOIAF) who is imprisoned for going against him. The story follows their intertwining journeys.
But why did I struggle initially? The biggest issue for me is the pacing. Large sections of this book have nothing “happening”. Sometimes that's okay, but compounded with other issues, it made it hard to continue reading, despite also being fascinated. I got the book through a library loan on Libby, which are 3 week loans. I have never failed to finish a book in that time. I finished the Jasmine Throne with just five hours left on my loan. The middle was just that slow to me.
The second thing is that this book suffers from a villain problem. I would say this book has four villains. One is the “big bad” they are seeming to set up for the whole trilogy. One is the main villain of this book, and two are secondary antagonists. The big bad was mostly just referenced, so their lack of characterization is fair. But the other three I found very one note. It's fine to have a couple antagonists who are not well developed, but when all of them are zealots in one way or another, with absolutely no nuance, it does the book no favors.
My third thing to note is the character of Malini. By the end, I was really into her character, and found her a deeper, richer character. But Malini is manipulative, and I don't think the author pulls this off particularly well. We are TOLD she is charismatic and manipulative and persuasive and that people are compelled by her, but the actual instances of her doing any of these things usually consist of her saying, “you should do X” “but why” “cause” “I guess that makes sense”. Obviously I'm exaggerating, but the character traits that Suri gave Malini are hard to pull off, and I don't think the work was fully acceptable to make her believable. For me, atleast.
A very minor thing is that for a traditionally published book, I noticed way too many errors. Three times this book asks a question in dialogue with a comma, and it is disruptive. Things like “Are you okay,”. It just doesn't look right. The worst one was- “Are you sure,” he roared.” He's roaring, but you put a comma? Just a little thing, but I expect better from the publishing process.
Now onto the good, because I can imagine you reading all of this and thinking, “but you gave it four stars, so what gives?”.
The worldbuilding in this book is superb. I love the setting, I loved the political intrigue and different nations, the magic system was incredibly cool. The religions were great. Priya, Bhumika, Rao, and later on, Malini are all great characters. Despite my issues with Malini's character, she really shines when her and Priya are together and actually communicating. I think their initial romantic interest was sparked a bit too hastily, but once it was there, I thought it was well done and developed naturally. The plot, once it was less confined to mostly one very small location, was very engaging. There is a subplot about a character's name being a prophecy that they can only tell when it is time for the prophecy to be enacted was a surprisingly interesting one. I usually hate prophecies of all natures, so a huge kudos for finding a way for making it much more interesting to me personally.
Overall, this book was a mixed bag, but I am very happy I stuck with it. I will be reading the next book of this series for sure.
Greta book. But really happy for the cast og characters...... Big help
An interesting tale of rebellion and forbidden love. Tasha Suri has created a well developed and intriguing world of mysterious temples, jungles and old magic, and characters who are not afraid to burn it all down.
The story unfolds in a vassal state to an empire where a previous atrocity led to the destruction of its temple elite and ever since then a slow creeping disease related to the surrounding forest. This dark, dank and mysterious setting provides a wonderful sense of overarching gloom, and the world building here really is top notch.
The motivations for the main characters on the other hand are somewhat over convoluted for me and that is where the momentum of the story suffers. At times this slows down too much and begins to drag.
The world building here is top notch though - a unique and fascinating place.
Character driven and beautifully written, The Jasmine Throne is epic fantasy at its best. It's one of those rare books that seems perfect to me in every way, one that is technically wonderful and one I love with my whole heart.
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