The Oleander Sword: sequel to the World Fantasy Award-winning sapphic fantasy The Jasmine Throne

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DR: The Oleander Sword isn’t the only book you’ve had come out in 2022 – there’s also What Souls Are Made Of, your Wuthering Heights remix. What made you decide to write a retelling of Wuthering Heights, and what was the process like of doing it while you were still in the middle of writing this other huge series? There is also some attention to Priya’s tightness with her longtime friend, Sima. It’s important to Sima for them to be more equal, to feel useful and included, so Priya invites her to join her on the journey to Saketa. It pains me to write this review of The Oleander Sword (book two in the Burning Kingdoms series, which began with The Jasmine Throne), because while this isn’t a terrible book, The Jasmine Throne was my favorite book of 2021, as well as the most romantic and lyrical book I read in last year, and I had such high hopes for its sequel. Suri's incandescent feminist masterpiece hits like a steel fist inside a velvet glove."—Shelley Parker-Chan, author of She Who Became the Sun Their chosen paths once pulled them apart. But Malini and Priya's souls remain as entwined as their destinies. And they soon realize that coming together is the only way to save their kingdom from those who would rather see it burn - even if it will cost them.

Janine: guess I should first introduce myself as other half of Harley and Roz. I’m Roz, pleasure to meet you.

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This book focuses on Malini warring against her brother for the throne, so you can expect plenty of war strategies and big battles and, like in book 1, faith and religion also play a big part in the decisions and outcomes of the war. Ahiranya is also not forgotten, there the groundwork has been laid for book 3 which will likely focus more on Priya. The romance between Priya and Malini is light but complex at the same time and I liked it. This book is a bit dark and I wonder if a happy outcome, or partially happy outcome is even possible, but I have to know so I can’t wait to see what will happen. Recommended! I do want to mention that this is sapphic, adult, fantasy. I know some people have the label YA on this but it is Adult. There is a good amount of violence and death and one sex scene that is not explicit. This book feels darker in tone than I remember the first book being, but I have read YA books that have felt darker and more violent than this book so I think it would be appropriate for kids who read older YA books, but again I’m no expert in judging kid appropriate things. I also want to mention that this series is epic fantasy, with big sweeping casts and large books. I would also put this second book under military fantasy as the military campaign for the throne is the main part of this book. Because of this change I would now recommend this series more to fans of the first book, and fans of epic and or military fantasy. As much as I love and widely recommend the first book, I don’t know if I think the series as a whole, would be as enjoyable for someone who is newer to the fantasy genre or who is not much of a fantasy fan. My other half Harley is a published author and is currently working on a young adult novel. Unfortunately the editors are looking for books that are less than 80000 words and I wonder how much of that has to do with why Suri keeps rushing the ends of her books. I think this story would be better off in the adult category. Though The Oleander Sword tries to mimic the moral dilemma of Priya in The Jasmine Throne when she is forced to choose between the ideologies of Malini, her sister Bhumika, who is playing the long con of being loyal to Parijatdvipa, and her brother Ahsok, the leader of the rebellion of Ahiranya, the quandaries of The Oleander Sword never quite reach the same level of urgency and desperation. Instead, Priya once again stumbles along after Malini, figuring things out as she goes, with very little of her own agency, and I found myself taking much the same attitude as this protagonist—”whatever happens, happens.” I simply wasn’t able to get as invested in The Oleander Sword, despite the many tragedies brewing in the series.

With Malini I’m less sure how much could have been done, given her position, her single-minded goal to depose Chandra, and all the scrutiny she was under, how limited she was by all the people around her. I feel that this more than anything was what kept the romantic relationship in a holding pattern. Her role needed to play out that way, but it did restrict the relationship development a lot. More could have been done with her relationship to the priests along the way, though. That might have been a nice source of tension (I guessed why they were helping her early on, though, and that took some of the suspense out for me).

About this book

as for the climax....well if you're invested in malini x priya, you'll be emotionally impacted. i did like it though and i'm interested to see where things go from here.

You know what I know. You know our ancient enemy comes. That is the war that lies upon the horizon…..The yaksa will return. The rot heralded them. They will come, and there will be war again.” All of my anticipated reads are proving to be absolutely amazing and I love that so much for me! The Oleander Sword, sequel to The Jasmine Throne, is a much-anticipated novel for many readers this year because boy, what a cliffhanger was that! I was so happy to have been approved for an e-ARC via Netgalley and safe to say, it’s a delight to have read it. The prophecy of the nameless god—the words that declared Malini the rightful empress of Parijatdvipa—has proven a blessing and curse. She is determined to claim the throne that fate offered her. But even with rage in her heart and the army of loyal men by her side, deposing her brother is going to be a brutal and bloody fight.And the magnetic, slow but inescapable, pull that Priya and Malini feel towards one another while Malini must embody an untouchable, godsent empress and they must focus on a war they have to win??? *chef’s kiss* The Jasmine Throne has been hailed as a series opener that will "undoubtedly reshape the landscape of epic fantasy for years to come" ( Booklist, starred). Now, award-winning author Tasha Suri's provocative and powerful Burning Kingdoms trilogy continues with The Oleander Sword.

Chapter One then begins and the story shifts to the present day. When we last saw Malini, she had just used an opportune moment—Rao’s revelation of the prophecy that she would be the one to name Parijadvipa’s next leader—to crown herself as Empress. Now Malini travels with an army comprised of soldiers and princes from all the kingdoms of the empire. All the kingdoms except Ahiranya, Parijatdvipa’s oppressed former enemy. The prophecy of the nameless god—the words that declared Malini the rightful empress of Parijatdvipa—has proven a blessing and curse. She is determined to claim the throne that fate offered her. But even withrage in her heart and the army of loyal men by her side, deposing her brother is going to be a brutal and bloody fight. I feel that their romantic feelings could have been reinforced more if their commonalities had been consistently highlighted as they were in the first book. The two of them are in different places in life now than they were in The Jasmine Throne, so I needed to be shown why they were still meant to be. I didn’t feel the romantic tension nearly as much as I had in the earlier book. DR: The Jasmine Thronefeatured its fair share of both fantasy and romance, but the romantic vibes are dialed up to a whole other level in The Oleander Sword. Without getting into spoilers…the letters. Can you talk a little about how you decided to include those?Lastly I have a prediction of some things that will happen in book three. These are pure speculation but in case you are interested. The plot is also extremely compelling. There is the war Malini is fighting, the stuff Bhumika is struggling with in Ahiranya and Aditya, and his destiny. There is this impending feeling of doom and disaster throughout the entirety of this book. I feel like that's part of the reason why this part is so much tighter plot-wise than book 1. The plot feels like a held breath, just waiting for the other shoe to drop because the foreshadowing is so wonderfully handled that you KNOW something is about to go horribly wrong and all you can do is watch the characters hurtle towards their fate. It might also be, due to the constant theme of Fate and the role it plays in the characters' lives. Ironically we have characters like Rao and Aditya who are ready to follow their fate, and then we have Malini who is trying desperately to wrench her character's autonomy out of the author's cold dead hands. There is this dramatic/structural irony which is why I compared it to Song of Achilles, and that lends a sort of helplessly tragic motif to the novel.