The Jasmine Throne (Burning Kingdoms #1) by Tasha Suri was sold to me as a part of the "sapphic trifecta" of adult fantasy on Twitter last summer. While I acquired it and its sisters a year ago, I only got the time to dig into The Jasmine Throne this month. To summarize: It blew past my expectations.
The Jasmine Throne is a 534 pages-long book filled with a deathly magic system and a magical blight, political intrigue, and birthname prophecies. It's a lesbian, enemies-to-lovers story.
The book offers up a large cast of characters deriving from the different nations around the Indian-inspired universe, mainly taking place in the nation, Ahiranya, where our characters reside. The book is narrated from nine different points of view, focusing on three strong-willed female characters - Priya, Malini, and Bhumika. The Jasmine Throne is definitively a novel about women. Especially, how women are perceived, and the masks women have to wear and hide to not be considered "monstrous" in the eyes of men.
"But you’re no hare, are you? You are a night flower if anything, precious only for a brief time before you decay.”
The story begins in Ahiranya, an empire that in the ancient Time of Flowers had nearly conquered the entire continent. Now, it's being crushed under the dictatorship of the Emperor Chandra of Parijatdvipa. To quell the threat of magic and opposition, he "purifies" women on the pyre, and immolated the Temple Children of Ahiranya.
A few years later, Malini finds herself exiled and imprisoned on 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. - the storygraph synopsis.
"As if a choice, carefully bred into your nature by grief and training and hardship, was any choice at all."
While romance is not a extensive part of the book, its sapphic tones are there from the beginning, being both prohibited and a tradition where the cultures of two different nations meet and bend to keep the peace in Hiranaprastha. However, what one might find more interesting about the women in this book is that none of them find that it matters. They dare to love who they love without shame regardless of the laws of the empire. This also ensures that the reader get their fill of romance scenes.
The strong wills of all the female characters to reach their goals are something that makes this book stand out. None of their motives are in any way a hero's pure motives. They are selfish, and gray, aiming to preserve and improve their worlds, no matter the cost, but they are also in no search of a perfect solution. No such end exists. If its anything this book begs you to understand, is that there are no ways to power that do not corrupt a person at all. Power comes at a cost.
Bhumika - is the pregnant wife of Ahrianya's Parijat regent and a twice-born temple daughter in hiding. She took Priya in and gave her a job at the Mahal when she was left at her doorstep by her sick brother. Bhumika wants to keep the peace and shed as little blood as possible, and knows the ways culture is tarnished under foreign rule.
Priya - is a temple daughter, once-born, and a maidservant of the Mahal. She takes the job as a maidservant in the Hirana when Malini arrives for her imprisonment. She has a soft heart, taking in orphans suffering from the blight and gifting them sacred wood, but she also has faces to hide away if she wants to stay alive. Priya is in search of family and identity after the immolation of her temple family.
Malini - is the exiled princess of Parijatdvipa. Finding herself in Hirana, she's desperate for a friend, anyone who can help her get out. Behind the scenes, Malini still works to see her own goals completed: to see her cruel brother, Chandra, off the throne, and reinstate her bigger brother as the true emperor.
While these are whom I consider the main character, there are sub-plots and details that expands the world. The magic system, for once, is intricate and deadly, and the reader, like the characters, are still missing pieces to unerstand how the existence of the powers, the blight, and the might of the nameless gods will coil into the plot and affect the outcomes. It's definitively a slumbering force.
To conclude, I loved this book. The Jasmine Throne exceeded my expectations and gifted me the pleasure of meeting inspiring female characters in the many stages of life. The Jasmine Throne is a book where the ruthless battles the soft and the necessity of monstrousness in the search for power. I also find that the book has a strong dialogue on queer relationships, one that is of acceptance and rebellion of the better sort.
If you're thinking of picking up a epic LGBT fantasy right now, The Jasmine Throne by Tasha Suri is a phenomenal choice.
Rating: 5/5.
Information
Format: E-book Pages: 534 Genre: Epic Fantasy Year of publishing: 2021 Series: Burning Kingdoms #1
Trigger warnings
Immolation, execution by elephants, strangelation, homophobia. Melting faces. Grotesque blight turning people into trees. Blood.
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