Review: The Jasmine Throne by Tasha Suri

Tasha Suri auto-buy author? Most definitely. After loving Empire of Sand and Realm of Ash, Suri has been high on my list of I’ll-read-whatever List. So when I got an ARC of The Jasmine Throne, I squealed. But the biggest question is – how did The Jasmine Throne compare? Find out by reading the rest of this book review!

Summary

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

(Disclaimer: I received this book from the publisher. This has not impacted my review which is unbiased and honest.)

I am such a fan of these books that examine colonization, rebellion, and romance. The Jasmine Throne delivers a rich, multi-layered, and wonderfully paced series opener. Even though it ended up being longer than I thought, I actually breezed through The Jasmine Throne. Suri manages to balance multiple perspectives that allowed readers to get to know the intricacies of the characters with enough movement to expand the world and broader plot. Honestly as soon as the first chapters were done, I was hooked.

A plant plague? Count me in. The world building in The Jasmine Throne unfurls across the pages intricately and unhurried. It is immersive and detailed through and through. Reading, I was totally captivated as the characters question whether we are limited by what we were raised to be. The Jasmine Throne is a story about survival and the future. Suri’s exploration of colonization is *chefs kiss*. It examines the rhetoric that leaves us in chains, that condems rebellions, and that allows the moral greyness, the ethical dilemmas to be witnessed in their complexity.

Suri delivers scenes ripe with romantic tension, barely contained rage over the murders of women, and conflicted emotions about connection and agency. No one is truly blameless. Each of Suri’s characters establishes this moral greyness of best-case scenarios and compromised decisions. About solidarity, resistance, and survival. What was chilling to me was the world of The Jasmine Throne. The ways the future is terrifying in the hands of men with vision, religious power, and the power to make it so. Even just thinking of those scenes gives me shivers.

Overall,

Throughout The Jasmine Throne I was drawn to the explorations of power. Who tries to balance their rule, and might, with vengeance? These forces of rebellion, insurrection, retribution, and power. These images of monstrous women and wondering what makes them monstrous? When, all a woman needs are desires to be monstrous to patriarchy. The Jasmine Throne merely confirmed that morally grey lesbians are my favorite brand. And I need the second book right now ok?

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Find The Jasmine Throne on Goodreads, Amazon (US) & (UK), Indiebound, Bookshop.org & The Book Depository.

Discussion

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