Let's get the basics out of the way:
1. This is the first in a trilogy. It doesn't stand alone. It ends on a cliffhanger.
2. This is not a romantasy. There's no romance in this book. There are minor romantic feelings that aren't acted upon (so far). They're not between the 2 characters mentioned in the blurb.
3. This is not a gritty grimdark story. This is a YA/adult crossover epic fantasy veering more towards heroic / hopeful than grimdark.

I had an eye on this book since I've seen the publisher's marketplace announcement. Evil witch & pacifist underdog prince? Sign me the heck up! However, my first worry was "is this gonna be another of those tropey no plot just vibes I-hate-you-but-can't-resist-you romantasy? if so, I don't wanna read it!" But hey, it surprised me the best way possible because it's the utter opposite of a romantasy! The protagonists might be immature (they're young, in their early 20s), but but they don't run on "horny logic", that's for sure.

I feel the fantasy genre right now is so overrun with romantasy that a 2-pov blurb makes people think this is some grand enemies to lovers story. It is not. Ashoka and Shakti are political allies of convenience, but harbour no romantic feelings for one another. It makes me sad how this book has so many romance / romantasy tags on goodreads based on who knows what assumptions. There's literally no romance in this story. Ashoka has romantic feelings for another character, but out of fear and hesitation doesn't act on them. But really, can't people these days be allies or reluctant friends anymore? Everything needs to be about romance otherwise it's condemned?

This is a story of an extremely idealistic to a fault prince whose ideals are slowly eroded over time. I don't understand the reviews condemning the book just because he starts naive and a bit "stupid" / delusional. That's what the story is about. The corruption of unsustainable "purity" that doesn't withstand the clash with reality. That he could have afforded his lofty ideals when he was just an idle spare, last in line to the throne, but the moment he has to actually do things, he's forced into hard choices and all of them go against his initial morals. He's forced to pick a lesser evil, and due to that evolves over time. And this is only the 1st in a trilogy. Who knows, maybe in the end he will go full Darth Vader. The fall / corruption is only sweet if the character started really high and mighty, noble and pure.

It's also a story of oppressed witches who were supposed to "do no harm", but how can they just lie down and die? In both cases of Ashoka and Shakti / Nayani there's the question: can you stick to a pacifist code in the face of a genocide?

Ashoka and Shakti are meant to be foils of each other. Shakti was taught pacifism and rejects it. Ashoka was taught the ruler should be brutal, but he rejects it and wishes for pacifism, for which he's mocked to be "weak" and "unsuitable to rule". But when his oath of pacifism breaks, this doesn't bring him respect, rather more mockery and hatred.

I felt the pace and tension was medium-burn, not too slow but also not very fast. Which is fitting for an epic fantasy where we need to learn the world, its politics, the magic and so forth. But it also didn't go into long worldbuilding tangents and there were regular reveals and mini-plot-twists. Halfway the story the protagonists get separated and have to work on their political goals apart. I was never bored with the story and never struggled to follow the plot.

The worldbuilding is lush and interesting, full of tropical flora and fauna, spirits small and big (the small ones reminded me of creatures from Princess Mononoke, the big ones usually take animal forms like a tiger or an elephant), we have flying winged serpents and rideable panthers, flowers, food, clothing and architecture mostly resembling India but we have chilli peppers and "frangipanis" that from what I've checked originate from America so it's more like a fantasy tropical world with Indian influences but not 1:1 historical India. And I'm not the person to obsess how fantasy authors can't have potatoes in their pseudo-medieval Europe; tbh I think this rule is stupid - it's fantasy, if the climate permits it, or other worldbuilding elements, go on and have your vanilla and cocoa alongside "old world" plants.

There's a certain amount of violence, blood and gruesome deaths but they always serve the plot and aren't over the top gratuitous. I'd say fairly standard for epic fantasy.

Representation:
MMC Ashoka is in love with his bodyguard Rahil, so most likely gay or other MLM orientation.
FMC Shakti is most likely aromantic, as she mentions romantic feelings are foreign to her.
Side character Aarya is bisexual.
All characters are South Asian coded / Brown-skinned.

I really enjoyed this entry installment in a trilogy and I'm really curious where the author takes the story next! I loved the worldbuilding, the queer representation that wasn't the focus of the story but rather "just existed", and a rare YA/adult crossover fantasy that doesn't center any romance. I love to see more of them - this one was definitely better than my last pick! A very competent debut.

My only complaint is that I hate cliffhanger endings, but that's totally my fault I'm a lousy sequel reader. Alas, that's no fault of the book or the author, series are viable and common in epic fantasy.

Thank you Netgalley and Harper Voyager for the ARC!

the premise is really intriguing, mauryan inspired and hunted witches, but unfortunately it does fall rather flat and is a big case of telling over showing.

I love the cover of this book and the synopsis grabbed me. However, I really did not enjoy this book. The whole thing felt incredibly disjointed and nothing is thoroughly addressed that to a point of me feeling like any sentiments the book was going for were properly finished.

Ashoka is a prince who has been raised into violence but dreams of peace. Shakti is a mayakari who was raised to be peaceful but wants revenge for the death of her aunt. They both have to navigate a world that wants to destroy both of them. This is a very good fantasy story with a lot of political intrigue. The story is compelling, and I am very invested in Ashoka and Shakti as characters. I am excited to see where book 2 will go with the story.

I was pretty disappointed by this book. The plot just didn't give me what I wanted it to. It was too confusing and not cohesive enough. The main character wasn't someone I found myself rooting for so that also took away my enjoyment. The cover is beautiful though.

Thank you NetGalley and HarperCollins Publishers for giving me an arc of this book. In exchange, I am writing an honest review.

3.5 out of 5 stars.

The Prince Without Sorrows is a good introductory book to a fantasy series. The magic system was fun, the characters were unique, there are witches and royals, and the world was unique. The worldbuilding was strong and had a mixture of religion (I think Hinduism) and mythology taken from Indian culture. The prose was well written and had beautiful metaphors and similes throughout.

However, what was confusing was in the arc, there was no map provided so I was lost with where the villages were located. In the published version, the book will have a map so this is more on the publisher and not the author. However, I will say that the map is an additional feature of the book and it should’ve been clearer in the writing where the villages were.

Another issue was there were so many names that started with the letter “A”, particularly in the royal family that it was confusing for about the first half of the book for me to remember who was who.

My last major issue was this was written with a dual-POV. I feel like there should’ve been a third POV added since the prince’s guard and one of his advisors was sent off to another kingdom to make a deal with the prince there. It seems like that deal is going to be a major plot point in the series at some point and I wished we had seen more of what happened over there.

Overall, I really enjoyed the book and am looking forward to reading the next one!

Thank you for an ARC for an honest review!

I will say that I think I read this at the right time as an American woman. I could truly empathize with the duality of pacifism and violence. I did enjoy the fantasy aspect and the spirits but sometimes the characters and world building fell a little flat. I would still recommend this book to anyone feeling the anger that I am at our current administration.

Read This Book If…you want a unique setting for your fantasy!

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️/5
The Prince Without Sorrow by Maithree Wijesekara

Genre: Queer fantasy
Series: Obsidian Throne # 1
Spice Level: 0/5🌶, no spice
Setting: fantasy world inspired by Ancient India
POV: dual, 3rd person, past tense

My Thoughts:
This book was a really good release for me post-Inauguration. If you’re frustrated with the current regime and persecution against innocents, then this book with be very cathartic for you.

Since I know very little about the Mauryan Empire of Ancient India, I found this world to be very new and exciting and the witches in hiding have such interesting lore.

With this being a dual POV story, I was expecting more romance. However, I think there’s a very interesting dynamic being set up for the rest of the series. Both of the main characters are “act now, think later” which made for entertaining reading and I loved that for them!

I’ll definitely be continuing with the series!

Memorable Quote: “Vengeance praised her but recklessness punished her.”

Thank you to the publisher for my advance copy!

This dual-POV tale explored pacifism and power.

I enjoyed the relationship Ashoka had with his winged serpent, Sahry, and wanted more development there. I also wanted to learn more about the nature spirits, the magic system and Shakti’s unique powers.

The various sibling squabbles and political manipulations slowed the pace and became repetitive. By the midpoint, I was still waiting for the plot to kick off. The first half of the book felt like setup of the world and the characters’ challenges but there was little forward movement on achieving their goals. The second half was more engaging as both Ashoka and Shakti attempted to use what power they had to change the world.

By the end, I was confused by the characters’ decisions and the overall messaging on pacifism and violence. Book one of this series seemed to stop without a solid story arc of its own.

Thanks to NetGalley and Harper Voyager for the ARC.

The Prince Without Sorrow has an interesting world with spirit-based magic and it explores the duality between pacifism and violence with the FMC and MMC. More interesting than the standard good vs evil. It’s dual pov between the prince MMC and witch (mayakari) FMC. It reminds me a lot of A Taste of Iron and Gold but even slower burn between the MMC and his royal guard. It deals with politics as the 3 royal children learn to rule/govern after their father the king dies and the witch who tries swaying their actions.

Thank you to NetGalley and Harper Voyager for providing an eARC in exchange for an honest review.

I had a fun time with this one! I think the world was incredibly interesting, I really liked how the spirits were described here. They reminded me a bit of the spirts in the Studio Ghibli movie, Princess Mononoke. The lesser spirits reminded me of the Kodama and the great spirits were similar to the Forest Spirit. Overall I liked the characters, though at times the characterization was quite simple. Ashoka, is the youngest prince of the Ran Empire who's pacifist nature puts him in constant contention with his father. Shakti is a mayakari, a person with abilities chief among them to speak to the nature spirits of their land. Mayakari have been persecuted by the current regime and Shakti finds herself on her own after her Aunt is murdered by the Emperor. Ashoka and Shakti find their paths crossing as each of them work to undo Emperor Adil's legacy.

I did find that some plot beats felt incredibly obvious and waiting for the characters to realize what was happening was a little frustrating. Overall this was a good effort for a debut and I'm excited to see what happens in the sequel.

3.75 ⭐️ rounded up to 4 ⭐️

Overall, I enjoyed this book. It took me awhile to really get into but once I was in, I flew through it. I liked the writing, for the most part, however, I will say there were times where I felt the author was trying to sound more sophisticated and it came off as nonsensical.

I think what stood out , for me, is the unique world being built here. “The Prince Without Sorrow” is an Indian-inspired fantasy that includes witches (mayakari) and nature spirits which I really enjoyed. It was refreshing to read about a different kind of fantasy-world than the ones most often seen on bestseller lists. I think there was a good amount of world-building in this book. Of course, I have questions, but I do think the answers are intentionally left out rather than overlooked (or, at least, I hope!).

The characters in this book were also really interesting to me. I found the dynamic between Ashoka and his family really interesting and a different take to a typical evil family vs the one “good one.” I also find Ashoka’s character change over the book to be intriguing. Shakti wasn’t particularly a groundbreaking character for me, but she was still interesting, in her own right. I wasn’t disinterested in her storyline, but where she finds herself right at the end had me on the edge of my seat.

The ending of the book did a great job at capturing my attention and making me want to pick up the next book. It took me from “yeah, I liked it but I don’t know if I’ll read the next book” to “well, shit. now I have to read the next book” within two chapters.

I think this book could be the start of a great new series and I am interested to see if the author can deliver on that potential.

I started this book and was hopeful for what it might bring to me as a reader but I honestly can’t get very into it. I didn’t get very far but I don’t want to spend time investing in books that I just don’t want to pick up. I hope the book is very successful for the author though! Since I’m dnf-ing I won’t post a review on goodreads because I feel it’s more of a personal preference thing than anything.

I gave this book four stars only because I feel like characters were left out of developing the story as a whole. The prince focuses too much time on his sibling rivalry while the mfc has more emotional depth. The storyline was good just needs more depth overall

3.75 stars rounded up. I wanted desperately to love this one, but alas I think the lack of editing got this one in it's grasp. I think one more round could have certainly tided up the issues and character inconsistencies that made this one hard for me to get into, which is disappointing because the premise and world/magic were so unique and worth exploring more of. I will hold out for book two, and hopefully things are tided up more.

I really wanted to love this books and did enjoy aspects of it. The magic system and world building were excellent. The character development not so much. I wish they had more depth.

First, I'd like to say how much I really love the cover of this one! I'm a bit of a sucker for any type of animal on the cover, but this one really worked exceptionally well, I think.

I thought The Prince Without Sorrow had a really intriguing premise and I was actively excited to check it out and learn more. about it. There were a lot of positive things about this book, though there were also a number of things that didn't work for me. I really liked the characters in general and found myself really curious to see what decisions and actions they would take. However, I also felt like there was a bit of underdevelopment that happened with the characters and I wished there was a bit more to some of them and their decisions. I also found the prose to be a bit hit or miss for me.; at times, I loved the beauty of Wijesekara's prose and word choices, but at other times it felt like it was doing a little too much and it didn't feel as smooth. This is something that I think shows the author has a lot of potential and I will look forward to see more of her writing as she continues to grow. Overall, this was a promising fantasy and I'm glad I had an opportunity to check it out!

3.25 Stars

This is the best example for a story that has an interesting story and premise but the editing needs a lot of work.
The premise is genuinely engaging, as is the magic system, but unfortunately, these strengths aren’t enough to compensate for the shortcomings in the plot.

Maybe it's because it's just book 1 and I definitely don't mind a story that lives for the journey rather than an end goal but it's too messy. Shakti and Ashoka's actions keep drifting between regret, anger, happy... I get that human emotions are messy and this did feel realistic but it also messes with the plot. These people are supposed to be adults. I expect some stability in their actions.

Also, the romance was laughable. Why talk about it if it's so non existent?

I will continue the series though because I am curious to see where this goes. But I really hope the future books are edited WAY BETTER

NOOO :( i was really anticipating this one, Emperor Ashoka's story is definitely very interesting and as an Indian I was hyped to see a fantasy retelling-ish of the history. instead, what i got was a series of random plot conveniences, no real character-building, incredibly peculiar wording.... 2 stars. tysm for the arc.

DNF at 4%
I couldn’t even make it through the first chapter, the writing was so unbearably weird. It felt like it wanted to be a typically overwritten fantasy novel, but the author doesn’t have the mind for it, so it all just read very oddly. Also there were so many commas that should have been periods, good lord!