Review of The Lotus Empire by Tasha Suri

Three years ago I read The Jasmine Throne, gave it three stars, and said I might read the sequel. Then that sequel, The Oleander Sword, got a four-star rating and an even better review. Now the conclusion, The Lotus Empire is out, and … y’all, this is top-shelf fantasy. Like, we’re talking one of the best fantasy novels I’ve read this year, and a stunning conclusion to The Burning Kingdoms trilogy. Tasha Suri has outdone herself. Thank you to Orbit and NetGalley for an eARC.

No spoilers for this book but spoilers for the first two!

Malini is now the empress of Parijatdvipa, but at what cost? The stability of her throne is tenuous. From within, the priesthood threatens to withdraw their support if she doesn’t cast herself on the pyre to burn for the nameless god. From without, the now-ascendant yaksa have isolated Ahiranya and, through Priya, are orchestrating the return of their mother Mani Ara to usher in a new Age of Flowers. Enemies to lovers to enemies again, Malini and Priya each fight for the survival of their people despite being unable to rely on the power they have accrued in the past year or so.

The world Suri has created here is so lush and fascinating. As I ruminated in my review of The Burning God, I think mainstream fantasy’s Eurocentrism has been to the genre’s detriment. What Suri has done here feels extremely fresh not just because she is drawing from a slightly different mythological inspiration but because she’s also challenging more colonial ideas about storytelling. You still have empires and war and conquest. But we don’t have the same obsession with heroes and villains. Suri complicates our understanding of what it means to be a protagonist in a very satisfying way. Wow.

Picking up where The Oleander Sword left off, The Lotus Empire pits Priya and Malini against one another. I was so hesitant to say good things about their romance in the first two books because it just isn’t my thing. For some reason, however, this book has sold me on their love story. Their tragic, doomed, star-crossed love story. I am obsessed. Suri managed to touch this aromantic gal’s heart, and I want these two to live happily ever after even though I knew, as the story unfolded, how unlikely such an ending would be. Every scene with the two of them—and all the scenes where they are apart—drips with alluring chemistry and burning desire in a way that does not disappoint. Wow.

Similarly, Suri spins a compelling story of competing deities and the price of power. Malini and Priya (and don’t forget Bhumika!) have sacrificed so much for the power they wield. They sacrifice even more in this book. I remarked in my review of The Jasmine Throne on the presence of the female characters in this series, how they are not only high-profile but how many there are in positions of power, and that is doubly true here. Suri exemplifies how you can have “strong” female characters whose strength manifests in diverse ways. Some are warriors, some are leaders, some are sages, some are … just existing. Just grandmothers and people trying to survive in this war-torn country. Wow.

The yaksa suck, the nameless god seems to suck—there is this underlying sinister aura that surrounds the deities who seem to populate the void behind this world. Inhuman yet powerful creatures are no one’s friend, but if you are willing to pay the price, you can harness their power to your ends. That’s the message here. Pay to play and beware what you reap. Having thrown her lot in with the yaksa out of fear of reprisal against Malini, Priya now comes to rue her hollowing out at the hands of Mani Ara. Her crisis of faith is such a great parallel to Malini’s complete lack of faith.

The trajectory of this trilogy has always been one of two women coming together, travelling in parallel, and then realizing they are indeed on opposite sides of an immense conflict. How could they possibly reconcile when they are fighting for the opposite outcome? I could see there was a third path coming from at least the middle of the book, but I really had no idea how Suri could achieve it in a way that didn’t feel cheap. I don’t want to spoil anything, so all I am going to say is that Tasha Suri pulls it off. Seriously, this is one of the most intense and satisfying endings to a trilogy I’ve seen in a while. I love it.

I loved this book. I just want to make this clear, want to sing its praises, for a few reasons. First, authors of colour don’t get enough support. Second, my opinion of this trilogy has steadily improved from the first book. Indeed, I recently read Suri’s debut novel, Empire of Sand, and it’s stunning to see the arc of her skills as a storyteller grow from that book to this one. Third, I struggled at first to get back into this series (it had been two years since I read the last book). If you had asked me for my prediction when I first started The Lotus Empire, I probably would have said the book would get three or four stars, that I was reading it to complete the trilogy. Not so now.

This book is the perfect blending of romance and tragedy and epic fantasy. Although it could stand on its own, it’s worth your time to go read the first two books so you get the maximum emotional payoff (and devastation) when you read this one. The Lotus Empire does not come to play, and it has cemented Suri in my personal canon of fantasy authors to watch.