The Jasmine Throne Book Review

From Goodreads: 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.

I’ve owned The Jasmine Throne for quite some time now. It was one of those Illumicrate books I got back when I would just get boxes because I wanted the fandom items (back before I started really running out of places to put everything). While I’d heard of the author before, and knew my friends had rated her books highly, the premise of the book felt a little unappealing to me. I think I’ve been getting a bit burned out on fantasy that focuses on royalty and rebellions and things recently, and so I placed this book on the shelf and thought nothing of it again. But since I got back into reading after the PhD, I’ve been in the mood to try and clear some of my tbr and maybe cull my bookshelves a bit. I’ve also recently been feeling like reading more adult fantasy, since I had such a fantastic time with The City of Brass and Jade City.

Despite waiting on my shelves for all these months, The Jasmine Throne was a breath of fresh air. The world-building is so careful and meticulous, and while there are a lot of aspects of the novel which cover familiar tropes (including the rebels and royalty characters) the magic systems and the politics are so carefully woven into the story that it feels very unique and new. I loved the unsettling idea of the rot, a sort of curse which has swept through and seems to be turning people into plants from the inside out. There was something so creepy and terrifying about this image, and it stuck with me throughout the book. The politics are very much tied to the different cultures and religions throughout the kingdoms– there are religions which believe in burning women on pyres to “purify” them, which then brought up some very interesting discussions about where women belong in this world and what kind of agency they have, and a religion which believes in a holy waterway, where temple children go into the water three times. Each time they either emerge with more potent magic or… they don’t return at all. As you might be able to tell with these religions, there’s not only a lot of clashes, but clearly a lot of costs involved with them. As a result, the politics in this book felt very layered and complex. I think people who are fans of things like Game of Thrones will enjoy this element of The Jasmine Throne. My favourite religious system in the book is the idea of the Nameless, a culture which believes that names hold power and tell you something important about yourself, and therefore you should keep your name hidden until the correct moment. This meant that when certain names were revealed in the book, there was so much weight to the moment, and I think it added a lot of tension and intrigue.

In terms of the characters, I really liked Priya and Malini, and I thought we got a lot of insight into Bhumika’s character too. Again, similar to series like Game of Thrones and Jade City, there’s quite a wide multi-POV in this novel, so you get a variety of perspectives on events, including sometimes passing narration from very minor characters. For the most part, this didn’t annoy me, but there were some characters like Rao who I needed to know a bit more about and spend a little more time with in order to completely understand the role they were playing in the narrative. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, especially as this is just the first book in the series but I think Priya and Malina were such strong and well-developed characters, that some of the others faded into the background too much in comparison.

The novel is also an adult fantasy novel, and deals with quite heavy topics including burning women at the stake, homophobia, and colonialism. I think the book handles all of this very maturely, and there’s no gratuitous scenes which are inserted purely for shock value, but even so, definitely check content warnings before heading into this one if you think these topics may be triggering for you (I’ve tried to list what I can remember, but there might be a few I’ve forgotten too).

Overall, I’m giving The Jasmine Throne:

 

 

 

 

 

I really enjoyed this book, and I’m pleased I eventually did get around to picking it up, because it was a really amazing read. While it was heavy and the emphasis on politics might not be for everyone, I loved how nuanced the narrative was, and how the world-building was layered and complex. It’s going to take me a little while to get to the next one, since I’ve got a huge tbr right now, but I’m excited to get around to book two, The Oleander Sword, as soon as I can! And I think, after falling in love with this book, I’m going to try my best to check out more of Tasha Suri’s works in the near-future.

Has anyone else read this book or plans to? What do you think about it? Let me know by joining in the discussion in the comments section down below! <3