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The Jasmine Throne
The Jasmine Throne by Tasha Suri is $2.99! This is Suri’s latest series and many of us were big fans of her debut fantasy romance Empire of Sand. I’m hoping this has the same balance of fantasy and romance.
Author of Empire of Sand and Realm of Ash Tasha Suri’s The Jasmine Throne, beginning a new trilogy set in a world inspired by the history and epics of India, in which a captive princess and a maidservant in possession of forbidden magic become unlikely allies on a dark journey to save their empire from the princess’s traitor brother.
Imprisoned by her dictator brother, Malini spends her days in isolation in the Hirana: an ancient temple that was once the source of the powerful, magical deathless waters — but is now little more than a decaying ruin.
Priya is a maidservant, one among several who make the treacherous journey to the top of the Hirana every night to clean Malini’s chambers. She is happy to be an anonymous drudge, so long as it keeps anyone from guessing the dangerous secret she hides.
But when Malini accidentally bears witness to Priya’s true nature, their destinies become irrevocably tangled. One is a vengeful princess seeking to depose her brother from his throne. The other is a priestess seeking to find her family. Together, they will change the fate of an empire.
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American Queen
American Queen by Sierra Simone is 99c! This is the first book in the New Camelot Trilogy. This is a menage romance with BDSM, some darker elements, and a cliffhanger. I’ve seen this highly recommended on social media, but there’s something about the description that puts me off. Maybe the political element? If you’ve read this, let me know what you think!
Warned as a girl to keep her kisses to herself, Greer Galloway disobeys twice–once on her sixteenth birthday as she’s kneeling in a pool of broken glass, and another time after a charming stranger named Embry Moore whisks her into the dazzling Chicago night. Both times she falls in love, and both times her heart is broken beyond repair. And so as an adult, she vows never to kiss–or to love again.
That’s until the Vice President of the United States shows up at the university where she teaches, and asks for one thing: for her to meet with the hero-turned-President Maxen Colchester. Maxen, the soldier who was her first kiss in that pool of broken glass.
And the other complication? The Vice President is none other than charming Embry Moore himself.
Soon, Greer finds herself caught between past and present, pleasure and pain–and two men who long for each other as much as they long for her. And as war and betrayal press ever closer, they tumble headlong into a passionate love affair that will change the world…
From the USA Today bestselling author of Priest comes a contemporary reimagining of the legend of King Arthur, Guinevere, and Lancelot–elegant, carnal, and unforgettable.
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Upright Women Wanted
RECOMMENDED: Upright Women Wanted by Sarah Gailey is $2.99! Carrie read this one and gave it a B+:
I have a hunch that this book will launch an A+ series, but it feels too much like a prequel to be graded an A+ and too much of a good prequel to merit anything less than an B+.
In Upright Women Wanted, award-winning author Sarah Gailey reinvents the pulp Western with an explicitly antifascist, near-future story of queer identity.
“That girl’s got more wrong notions than a barn owl’s got mean looks.”
Esther is a stowaway. She’s hidden herself away in the Librarian’s book wagon in an attempt to escape the marriage her father has arranged for her—a marriage to the man who was previously engaged to her best friend. Her best friend who she was in love with. Her best friend who was just executed for possession of resistance propaganda.
The future American Southwest is full of bandits, fascists, and queer librarian spies on horseback trying to do the right thing.
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Wolf Hall
Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel is $1.99! This is the story of Henry VIII’s court from the perspective of Thomas Cromwell. This is the first book in Mantel’s series, and the second book is also on sale. Some readers mentioned that had trouble getting into the writing, but it was still very popular. Have you read this one? Did you love it or hate it?
In the ruthless arena of King Henry VIII’s court, only one man dares to gamble his life to win the king’s favor and ascend to the heights of political power
England in the 1520s is a heartbeat from disaster. If the king dies without a male heir, the country could be destroyed by civil war. Henry VIII wants to annul his marriage of twenty years, and marry Anne Boleyn. The pope and most of Europe opposes him. The quest for the king’s freedom destroys his adviser, the brilliant Cardinal Wolsey, and leaves a power vacuum.
Into this impasse steps Thomas Cromwell. Cromwell is a wholly original man, a charmer and a bully, both idealist and opportunist, astute in reading people and a demon of energy: he is also a consummate politician, hardened by his personal losses, implacable in his ambition. But Henry is volatile: one day tender, one day murderous. Cromwell helps him break the opposition, but what will be the price of his triumph?
In inimitable style, Hilary Mantel presents a picture of a half-made society on the cusp of change, where individuals fight or embrace their fate with passion and courage. With a vast array of characters, overflowing with incident, the novel re-creates an era when the personal and political are separated by a hairbreadth, where success brings unlimited power but a single failure means death.
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Just a caveat that THE JASMINE THRONE is quite violent—it’s a deeply misogynistic society and the preferred way of keeping women (in particular) in line is to burn them alive, so that happens a LOT. I wasn’t actually sure I’d be able to finish the book, although I did.
I put the Arthur/Guinevere/Lancelot story in the same category as Romeo and Juliet, and I am Not a Fan.
Wolf Hall is superb but not an easy read. I’d advise assuming ‘he’ is Cromwell himself, and reading it in sustained stretches. Knowing something of Tudor history is probably also helpful (I’m a life-long Tudor freak, so that one was no problem, speaking personally).
I love Sierra Simone and the New Camelot trilogy, but beware of a couple of things: first of all, the series IS a trilogy—you have to read all three books to get the full arc of the story. Secondly, you do have to hand-wave some of the setup, such as the heroine being a fully-tenured professor at 26. Yeah, no. But if you can overlook the impossibility of some aspects of the premise, the story is an interesting (and hot) MMF. By the way, I just saw that this summer Simone will be releasing the first book of a new trilogy set in the same world as New Camelot but with different characters—these ones based on Mark, Tristan, and Isolde from the Tristan and Isolde story.
Wolf Hall has a challenging and unique writing style, but if literary historicals are your jam, I would highly recommend.
@DiscoDollyDeb – SO much hand waving! The fully tenured professor at 26 WITH ONLY A MASTER’S DEGREE was so annoying to me. If I recall correctly, my impression of the Simone was that it read like a Pete Buttigieg fanfiction in a modern Camelot AU.
The Jasmine Throne is INCREDIBLE – this and its sequel are my favorite epic fantasy novels in years! There is a lot of violence, but there’s also an incredible slow-burn sapphic romance that I love (even as I have a lot of fear about how it’ll end in the third book of the trilogy – unlike her first series, this is definitely not a series that guarantees HEAs!). This trilogy is much less romance-focused than her first series of books, but the overarching romantic plot is still SO compelling.
I would read American Queen just for that cover. It’s not ground breaking, but it is still deeply, deeply appealing.