LOVED this. The prose flowed smoothly, which made it easy to digest. I loved the rich cultural elements that were clear without being so deep that they were hard to follow. The queer representation was very appreciated as well. Easily one of my best reads this year so far. I intend to seek out future works by this author.

Not a big fan of this unfortunately. I’m very character driven and these characters just came across as really dumb, idealistic and constantly making gains very stupid decisions. I would say this is more YA than anything. I also found the pacing difficult but interesting concept with the magic system and world building.

was an ok read, nothing really stood out to me. personally if I was the MC I wouldve been worse if I could invade dreams.

Princess Monoke vibes in a patriarchy-driven empire!

Prince Without Sorrow was a great beginning to what I think will be a really stunning series with an amazing world. In this story we follow two main characters:
Shakti- a mayakari (essentially a witch), full of vengeance for her aunt and other mayakari, not good at the pacifism she’s been taught!
Prince Ahsoka Maurya- the Emperor’s son, sad boy pacifist, outcast in his family

In the Ran Empire, Emperor Adil has been persecuting mayakari for years, hunting them down and burning them at the stake. The mayakari are witches who use their power to maintain peace and have a strict pacifist code. They can raise the dead, speak to nature spirits, and curse the living. They typically keep most of this to themselves due to the propaganda the Emperor has spread about them to sow hatred throughout the Empire.

Shakti experiences this firsthand when she has to watch her aunt and other mayakari being burned in front of her. Rather than taking her aunt’s wishes of fighting against her need for vengeance, Shakti makes a decision to use her powers to take revenge against the Emperor. The curse she casts does exact revenge, however, it also has other unforeseen consequences.

With his father’s death, Ashoka is thrust into more responsibility, taking on the task of getting rid of the nature spirits plaguing the region of Taksila. This mission seems doomed to fail but Ahsoka is determined to approach it with new eyes.

The two characters end up meeting and befriending each other as Shakti continues her quest against the Emperor’s family. We do see some interaction between the two, but much of the story is split into two perspectives and they each continue their own plot.

I really enjoyed the characters in this book. Shakti is an amazing badass woman out for vengeance, so of course she’s an automatic win for me. But, I was actually surprised by the Prince. Ahsoka is introduced to us as being the outcast child of the emperor who refuses to agree with his father’s violence and wants to enact change peacefully. He’s often kind of angsty, as this type of character usually is, but the author wrote him with such nuance and slight surprises to the normal trope that he won me over. By the end of the story I was fully invested in what he was going to do next. I really appreciate when an author can utilize a character trope while also giving them their own agency and a little spin on what you would expect. None of these characters were flat and I enjoyed all of them!

Ahsoka’s sister, Aarya, was also another thoroughly enjoyable character for me. She was definitely the antagonist but also a character that had more nuance than just being “bad.” I’m interested to see how she grows and what she does next.

One of my biggest hopes for this series is that the author expands even more upon the world building and does all of the creatures that were introduced justice! All of the little nature spirits and the Great spirits and how they exist and interact in this world were so interesting. I also really liked the giant leopards that they rode! They were by far my favorite part of the book and I can’t wait to see more.

Overall a great start to a new fantasy series!


Thank you to Netgalley and Harper Voyager for this ARC copy!

I am going to be so honest I hated the characters in this book. The first like 2 pages I thought maybe I could and would love this book but I hated all of the characters

Thank you Avon and Harper Voyager for the gifted copy.

This story was an interesting premise of the cost of violence versus pacifism. We meet Ashoka who is a prince to a brutal father in a empire with a brutal history of killing witches simply for the potential of what they could do if they used their powers. Meanwhile, the witches and their supporters simply standby while they are killed off mercilessly, all in the name of a pacifist 'do no harm' philosophy. For gear of being cursed.

I supported neither side of this argument as I believed them both to be idealistic and fool hardy. The witches in, particular who were already living a "cursed " existence for all intents and purposes, but refused to fight back in equal measure because of potential bad karma, did not make that much sense to me. After years of seeing your family, friends, and communities being completely destroyed even though you did nothing to deserve it and still choosing not to fight back was not it for me at all. On the other hand, the prince has literally never truly had to fight for his place or even earn the authority he wants but expects to achieve it with idealistic thinking. That scene with the deer almost sent me over the edge 😂😂😂.

By the end of the novel, we saw the prince begin to be somewhat corrupted as he reckoned that violence would be a necessary part of this future if he intended to achieve his goals. Shakti's development on the other hand was a bit more interesting and strange to me. She received a very powerful magical ability which she attempted to use for her benefit, but her communications with the princess didn't add up with her station and overall situation. The ending of the novel was intersectionality, but I don't wish we had gotten more info as far as the origins and workings of the mysterious power.

The Prince Without Sorrow really left me wondering and looking forward to later books in the series to see where the story will go. Sometimes I feel like I lost the plot a bit, and the pacing was off but the book is written in a very realistic and luscious way. The descriptions are lovely, and both Ashoka and Shakti have rich innerworlds that I enjoyed getting to know. I love the Mauryan Empire inspired setting, the witches and spirits. Overall, a very solid debut and I look forward to seeing what comes next from Maithree Wijesekara.

2.75⭐️ I read this book over a month ago and it has taking me so long to write a review because I can't come up with a single thing to say good or bad. I don't think this book was bad, but it wasn't good neither. It is totally missable and forgettable. The plot was very bland, I think it needed more. It had many elements and character developments that could have been exploded and weren't. There was not a good foundation nor motivation. I hope the next books are better.

Thank you Net Galley, Avon and Harper Voyager for an e-galley of this book.

Prince Without Sorrow by Maithree Wijesekara is a richly imagined fantasy debut that tackles themes of legacy, redemption, and the high cost of vengeance. At its heart are two compelling protagonists: Prince Ashoka, the youngest son of a ruthless emperor, and Shakti, a pacifist witch turned reluctant avenger. Both characters are caught in the throes of moral conflict as they navigate a world of hunted witches, wrathful nature spirits, and political unrest.

Wijesekara's worldbuilding is evocative, blending mythology and magic with political intrigue. The tension between tradition and change, violence and peace, is a constant hum beneath the surface. Ashoka’s journey from idealistic exile to uncertain leader is compelling, especially as he confronts the monstrous legacy of his father. Shakti, meanwhile, provides a darker mirror, her pursuit of vengeance clashing tragically with her pacifist upbringing.

However, the novel doesn’t quite deliver on all its promises. The pacing falters in the middle, bogged down by dense exposition and underdeveloped side characters. While Ashoka and Shakti are emotionally complex, their arcs occasionally feel rushed or uneven, and the moments where their paths intersect—though powerful—don’t fully reach the emotional crescendo they aim for.

There are glimpses of brilliance here: powerful prose, thematic ambition, and a world teeming with potential. But The Prince Without Sorrow often feels like it’s trying to do too much at once, and the result is a story that’s thoughtful and imaginative, yet not entirely satisfying.

This was a very interesting read! First I loved that this story focuses on two characters who come from completely different worlds. Shakti, a mayakari or witch, is trying to survive in a world led by an emperor who wants to kill all of her kind. Then we have Ashoka who is the third child of the emperor. However, Ashoka wants peace and is determined to be nothing like his father and siblings. Throughout the book we see their differing personalities and how they plan to achieve their goals. Over time we begin to see major changes to who they are deep down and I am so interested to see what they will do to get what they want.

Second I thoroughly enjoyed the writing style. The writing made the story flow perfectly and added to the storytelling and lore in this book. It was beautiful writing that I couldn’t stop reading!

Finally I loved how this book ended! It ends with a cliff hanger that sets up the next book perfectly. I can’t wait to see what comes next for these characters and this world!

Thank you to the author, NetGalley, and Harper Voyager for this incredible ARC!

I enjoyed the fantastical aspects of the world building but struggled to understand the characters and plot. It felt like the FMC and the royal siblings were so young and making decisions based on whims and the plot too simplistic and repetitive (i.e., where were all the other adults?! the tension/nuances?!). More integration of the dual perspectives and exploration of the FMC’s cool abilities would also have been great, but maybe this is done in the sequels!

thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for a free copy in exchange for an honest review.

The Prince Without Sorrow is a fantasy book with a largely political plot - while there is fighting and war, it's not your usual adventure fantasy in my opinion.

content warms for genocide, death, burning injuries/death, serious injuries

Prince Ashoka is third in line to the Maurya throne, a pacifist who is skilled in self defense but refuses to harm an innocent. He is openly critical of his father's policies towards the mayakari, women with the ability to understand and speak with nature spirits (as well as a few other abilities).

Mayakari are, as a general rule, strict pacifists. Their powers mean they're capable of great destruction. Shakti has wanted to fight back for years, training in secret with a weaponssmith in town. One night, Emperor Adil visits Shakti's home town and kills her aunt and 2 other mayakari. The one voice holding Shakti back is suddenly gone, and she's determined that she will have her revenge against the emperor that has killed her family and oppressed her people.

What happens when a reluctant pacifist is let loose? What happens when a strict pacifist is faced with situations that pit his ideals against a harsh reality?

find out in The Prince Without Sorrow.

Thank you to NetGalley and Avon and Harper Voyager for an eARC of this title in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

I wanted to DNF this book so many times, but I pushed through hoping it would finally click. Spoiler alert, it did not.

I was excited to read The Prince Without Sorrow because the premise sounded incredible and the cover is freaking beautiful. Unfortunately, the exterior did not bleed through to the interior story.

My biggest issue with this book was the dreaded telling instead of showing. Everything- every emotion, every plot twist, every character's thought- was spoon-fed to the reader. It’s like the author didn’t trust that the reader is able pick up on any of the intricacies or even the most basic thought process of the character unless it was explained multiple times over. I lost count of how often we were told of the main character's beliefs, their past, and current struggles.

Honeslty, the characters were such a letdown. I really wanted to care about Shakti and Ashoka, but neither of them ever felt like real people. Both felt one-dimensional, and a lot of their actions didn't track. Even the side characters suffered. There were moments that should have been emotional or powerful, moments where I thought okay we're onto something here, and then it would just fall flat.

The political complexity felt like something similar to The Daevabad Trilogy, but this book just didn’t deliver on that level. A lot of elements reminded me of S.A. Chakraborty's books in theory — powerful kingdoms, magic, betrayal — but where Daevabad is rich and layered, with characters that you could really connect with, this felt shallow and lackluster.

I think the author had a strong vision, and maybe with tighter editing and more character development, this could have been something really great.

Unfortunately, there wasn't enough to make me want to continue this series. The only reason this book has more than one star is for the scenes with Ashoka's wickedly delightful winged serpent, Sahry. So preciousssss.

The start was a bit slow, but I really started to get into it after switching to the audiobook about halfway through; I feel like the narrators really brought the story to life! I loved the ways this book explored themes of power, violence, oppression, and so much more. I'm already looking forward to the next one!

Thank you to Avon and NetGalley for providing an eARC of this title. All thoughts share are entirely my own!

3.75 stars

While it had longer moments, this book made many of them very worth it.
The Prince without sorrow played the reader making us believe it was going for the usual traditional paths for certain tropes and then spun us around, literally a breath of fresh air! I loved the fact that the princess is the villain but not in the way we are used to. She gives Avatar Princess Azula vibes because she has been raised and taught as the golden child that her father's beliefs are corrected and while we don't arrive, her character layers make for a good threat to the story.
The flow of the two main characters and the magic was also very surprising and while usually I don't love when the characters conspire so fast, this made a lot of sense to the story and where their paths went.

We see some character corruption in a way as Shakti uses her abilities to get revenge and influence minds and people to her desire, which goes against her witch beliefs. Then we have Prince Ashoka would wants peace but his position, outside influences and what needs to be done are making him hate who he is as he enacts things that goes against his morals.

This is a very layered story and I look forward to book 2!

Thanks to HarperVoyager for an e-ARC via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review!

DNF’d at 34%! Even though I am in a reading slump, I could not push myself to continue reading. There is nothing wrong with this book, but it is not doing anything interesting with its plot to motivate me to keep reading. The writing style was also fine but kinda bored me as well. Unfortunately, I am not the target audience for this debut fantasy novel.

This book was a little puzzling for me. It starts out strong with the introduction of two main groups of people: the mayakari (witches) and the non-witch ruling class. The ruling class is militaristic and violently opposed to the mayakari, to the point where they murder the mayakari for simply existing. The current emperor at the beginning of the book has a pacifist son, who is so staunchly against violence that he won't even participate in hunting and is therefore the black sheep of the family. We are then introduced to a young mayakari whose closest family and friends have been murdered by the empire, which causes her to have a vengeance against those who rule and oppress. This sets up an obvious pathway for the story to take, however, it simply doesn't. The characters are all one-dimensional. They do and say exactly as they feel, without the capability, it seems, to have any sort of depth or deception. There are many instances where it would make sense to lie or at least not give away everything, but the characters instantly tell all of their secrets. It's wild and honestly makes for a pretty boring storyline. Nobody seems to have any plan and there's just an overall sense of naivety from everyone.

Other random things I noticed:
- Everything is easily solved by itself. There are no major points of contention that come to a satisfying conclusion due to the characters' actions. Everything just happens to work out.

- The magic system is not well-developed. I would think I had a grasp on it, and then new rules would be introduced randomly, which is one of my biggest bookish pet peeves. It also goes along with the "everything just happens to work" theme.

- The emperor's son being a pacifist and the witch wanting to be violent (even though the mayakari are supposed to be pacifists) had so much potential and it really drove me nuts that it ended up not making any sense. There's no explanation for why the son is a pacifist and honestly it doesn't make sense why he would be with the information we are given. I needed more back story and more backbone from him. His morals just seemed to crumble under any scrutiny. The mayakari, on the other hand, are staunchly against violence and curses and claim to be pacifist, but it turns out that if they perform a curse then there is backlash. So, are they really pacifist or just scared of the consequences? Relatedly: annoyed by how often I use the word pacifist? Me too. It is extremely overused in the book to the point that I became sick of the word. Same for the word "innocent".

Unfortunately, this book wasn't really for me. It had a lot of potential with the overall idea and theme but was poorly executed. I might give the next book in the series a chance, but I'm not super hopeful at this point.

2.5/5 stars rounded up to 3.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for providing an arc in exchange for an honest review.

I liked the female main character but not the male main character. He was arrogant. She was all vibes which was enjoyable to follow.

Prince Ashoka is the peaceful youngest son of a violent ruling family. Shakti is an angry witch bound by a pacifist code. When Shakti breaks her vows in order to curse Ashoka's father they both end up making decisions that will irrefutably change who they are and the world as a whole. It's been a while since I've read the first book in a fantasy series and actually found myself excited to see what happens next, but that's exactly what 'The Prince Without Sorrows' did. While a bit of the plot was what you'd expect from a fantasy novel the characters and heavy south Asian influence made this book stand out from the rest. I'm a huge fan of diverse own voices fantasy and this is one I'm going to be recommending again and again.

I was hoping to really enjoy “The Prince Without Sorrow” from the inspiration for its setting alone, but like other readers I have some qualms with it, which I’ll share generally below. (Very light spoilers)

The beginning of the book is quite violent: it opens on a grisly scene of a few unresisting women being burned to death by the Emperor and his soldiers, as the military presence has interrupted this small rural town with this express purpose in mind. Emperor Adil, leader of a tyrannical, expansionist government is particularly focused on eradicating witches (women w/magical powers, who are capable of lethal magic but are famously sworn to pacifism and commune w/nature spirits to keep the balance in the land, or focus on healing and philosophy) are being brutally hunted by the bloodthirsty emperor—a outlier development in the area’s history under his reign. One witch is the aunt and sole guardian of 22-year old witch Shakti (one of the main characters whose narrative swaps throughout the book). Already quick to anger, dubious of her aunt’s pacifism and studying swordplay, the horrific trauma that Shakti endures in her first chapter leads her to largely abandon the pacifist teachings of her beloved aunt and choose revenge instead. Overwhelmed by her rage and devastation, she breaks one of the most important rules of her order by cursing the Emperor, and Shakti is left navigating the unintended consequences of her actions throughout the story. She escapes unsuspected, finding work in the palace through another witch, where she meets the story’s other main character, Prince Ashoka. Ashoka, the youngest son of the Emperor, is the same age as Shakti and the lone voice against his father’s genocidal campaign against the witches, and in all ways seems completely opposite from his father and his power-hungry siblings. Ashoka embraces the vegetarianism and pacifism of the witches, refusing to obey his father’s demands to hunt and kill, and secretly tries to study more about the witches’ history. When Ashoka catches onto Shakti’s identity, he brings her under his protection at the palace, and it seems that we’re poised for character development to come from their opposing outlooks as these new allies work more together.

Instead, Ashoka’s war hungry, witch-loathing sister conspires to have Shakti put into her own service in the palace directly before Ashoka leaves to govern a chaotic southern region, and Shakti is left with danger on all sides along with access to a completely new, secret power and knowledge as a result of cursing the emperor. That’s where I slowly went from liking Shakti’s determination and strength to becoming frustrated at her (confusing) naïveté, incaution, and frankly annoying incuriosity. The villains (the emperor and his children) have slivers of humanity that could make for a more intriguing, nuanced story, but it’s lost on Shakti’s general bull-in-a-china-shop approach to just about everything. Most obnoxious, her new powers give her access to destroyed and unknown history, and instead of sharing this resource with Ashoka (which she could conceivably do), she ignores it—even in the face of pointedly obvious clues to there being more at play driving the genocide then just bigotry. Through Shakti we learn royal family secrets (which she seems to shrug at), and she and Ashoka each see hints that the emperor had deeply personal secrets (possibly involving his gender) driving his vengeance against a class sworn to peace that may be helpful for their present/future. I assume the next book picks up these threads, though it was frustrating to have these hints and deeper revelations introduced and then abandoned.

The story trades POVs back and forth, happily for me as I found Ashoka’s struggles governing, reaching out to witches, and uncovering secrets of his father’s crimes to be more interesting to follow. Ashoka struggles to reconcile his pacifism (and urge to oppose his father in every way) with the occasional need for violence that comes with fighting brutal injustice—while separated from his personal guard/BFF/ slow-burn love interest, Rahil. Overall, I found Ashoka’s character development interesting and well-paced while Shakti doesn’t have much or any growth to speak of despite the plot providing opportunities for it. The book ends with several cliffhangers, and I do hope the second delves more deeply into details and questions left by the first, and the main characters mature more. It’s a debut novel, and while I think it could have benefitted from more development and some edits, I’m interested to read the next book. I did mostly enjoy it—the story is compelling (if dark) and I loved that the characters were clearly south Asian, the clothing colorful, and both the temperamental flying snake dragons and oversized jaguar steeds were delightful additions. It reminded me some of books with similar themes that I enjoyed—it just wasn’t done as well—so I’ll keep an eye out for its sequel.