How do you even begin to talk about a book like this? I feel like I should try and say something poetic to match the lush prose of the novel. The words simply flow like water, strong in their delicacy but burning images into your mind. For me the mark of a great book is one I need to read, and I needed to read THE JASMINE THRONE. I was excited to pick it back up each day and am sad it's over...until the sequel comes out at least.

THE JASMINE THRONE attempts a lot, and it accomplishes a lot. It's a multi-POV story, has romance, politics, a strange illness, a princess in a locked tower, morally grey characters, and more. We follow Priya, a temple child-turned maidservant, who finds herself assigned as the personal maidservant of Princess Malini. Malini has been locked in a tower by her brother because she refused to die by fire. It is her punishment. Priya and Malini develop a slow burn relationship. (Is it weird to say slow burn when fire literally plays a huge role, including in symbolism?) The book employs one of my personal favorite pacing strategies: the slow, even flame of a candle that grows and grows into a roaring fire. There's never a dull moment. Never a moment the fire dims. It only grows, much like the love between Priya and Malini. Malini's brother also happens to be the emperor, and Priya's people have been oppressed greatly under his rule. Some of them have begun rebelling.

There are many more perspectives, including Rao (a follower of the nameless god, who is linked to Malini as an ally), Bhumika (wife of the regent and the woman who hired Priya as a maidservant initially), Ashok (another temple child and de facto leader of the rebels), and more. The book is not without pain nor loss. There's a backdrop of suffering. Of a whole people suffering under the ruling thumb of a cruel emperor. The tragedy of people who care deeply for one another having to make cruel decisions. And of course, the strangeness of the rot -- an illness that essentially turns your body into a human plant -- slowly but surely. Priya's people might have had the cure or might have been the problem; but those who knew for certain have all since perished.

There's a beautiful grace to this novel in its multitudes. There's political intrigue for days, and one heck of a slow burn romance. But there are other relationships too: familial, friend, mentor/trainee, bromance (I mean...). There's so much to say because the book is long. And yet it didn't feel like it. It feels like I've gone underwater for a few moments and come up soaking wet with wrinkly skin -- yet born anew. The book makes you lose track of time; it ensnares you in its roots. And it's wonderful.

Believe it or not this was my first Tasha Suri book and now I feel like an idiot. This author as amazing talent, I had heard about it but never experience first hand and this won't be my last book of her. Her storytelling and worldbuilding are amazing and so are her characters. This book take us on a magnificent journey that I enjoy from the first to the last words. I highly recommend it!!

I… just… wow. I long ago accepted the fact that no book would ever make me feel precisely the way Empire of Sand or Realm of Ash did, which is fine, so WHY did The Jasmine Throne have to knock me off my chair with the exact same feels magnified by like 10,000? What is that about?????

Reading The Jasmine Throne was like hovering, ghostlike, in another world, feeling the heat of the flames and watching the drip of spilled wine and hearing my own heart pound with rage or fear or love or some unnerving combination of all three. I was utterly transported and fascinated and thrilled to core, god dammit. And to top it all off, I am literally IN LOVE with Priya and Malini. They are my precious monster wives and I just??? They??? Murdered me??? Which is not at all out of character for them but still.

The next book cannot come soon enough.

The Jasmine Throne was easily my most anticipated release of 2021. I know that sounds like an exaggeration (how, exactly, can I choose a single most anticipated book, when I can’t choose one book most of the time every other time?), but it truly was. I had adored both of Tasha Suri’s other books, so I was always going to be desperate to read this, her third. And even more so, after finding out that it’s sapphic.

And, oh my god, but it doesn’t disappoint.

The first note I made about my review for this book was simply “aaaaah AAAAAAH”, which is, I think, a succinct enough summary for how I feel about it overall. It’s the kind of book that leaves you so full of feelings you don’t actually know how to put them into words. It’s times like this I almost wish I had continued studying English Lit just to know how to use words.

The Jasmine Throne follows a few different POVs, chief among which are Malini and Priya, but there’s also Bhumika (the love of my life), Ashok, Rao and Vikram (okay so this sounds a lot of POVs, but it’s primarily Malini and Priya, with occasional chapters from the others). Malini is exiled by her brother, isolated in the Hirana, an ancient temple and the source of the deathless waters. Priya’s job is to come every night and clean. But an altercation between Priya and another maidservant reveals her true nature to Malini and ties them together in a bid to escape. Meanwhile, Malini’s brother is trying to tighten his grip on the region, with burnings and raids, which are fought against bitterly by rebels.

Much like Empire of Sand and Realm of Ash, the world of The Jasmine Throne is lush and richly described. As cliche as it sounds to say, you can imagine the whole thing, imagine yourself there clear as day. It’s a world that sucks you in and you don’t want to leave. You’ll pick the book up and not want to pick it up for one moment, it’s so compelling.

And it’s not just the world that causes this; the characters are just as much behind it (with the exception, perhaps, of the men. Only two men in this book have rights, the rest should just sit down and let the women get on with it). It’s a book about the spaces for power that women carve out for themselves in a world that hates them. You see it in Bhumika, who cultivates power, married to Vikram, the regent, and who ultimately understands it more than he. You see it in Malini, who parallels her brother, Aditya — where Aditya has the privilege of being able to remain soft and not face up to the horrors of the world, Malini is forced to make herself “monstrous” to build an armour against it.

It’s a book that will leave you thinking for hours, days, even weeks, after you finish it. You’ll want to pick it back up straight away, to reread it with the knowledge of how it’s going to play out.

It is, then, the best kind of book.