Realm of Ash, by Tasha Suri
First book read in 2020! Realm of Ash, by Tasha Suri, is a sequel to Empire of Sand, both part of her Books of Ambha series, which is a secondary world fantasy based on the Mughal empire.
Empire of Sand was Suri's debut novel, and while I enjoyed it enough to preorder the sequel, it did show some of clumsiness often seen in debut novels: a lack of technical polish and subtlety. Realm of Ash is a clear level up. Characters are more complex, their decisions morally ambivalent and their motivations multilayered. What particularly struck me is Suri's improvement at evoking setting. The descriptions are grounded in more details and feel more immersive. From the widows’ hermitage to the imperial palace in Ambha to the desert of Irinah, each place feels distinct and comes alive in all dimensions.
Like the prequel, Realm of Ash has a strong focus on the romance between its two protagonists, Arwa and Zahir. The two characters have genuine chemistry, and I found the unspoken pining to be very id-satisfying. Of course, two people bonding over scholarship is always going to be catnip! But I think Suri does something quite interesting, even innovative, with the romantic relationships in both books.
In Empire of Sand, the male protagonist's refusal to consummate the relationship without consent is not just a point of characterization but actually the driver of sexual tension. Feminist discourse often argues that consent can be sexy (in response to the fallacy that consent kills spontaneity), but I suspect that no amount of abstract discussion can substitute for having actual romance stories illustrate how the space for consent can create passion.
Similarly, what I found notable in Realm of Ash was that Arwa's awareness, denial, and finally acceptance of her desire drives the progression of the relationship. Yet Zahir doesn't come off as passive, just tightly coiled in check, waiting for Arwa to initiate. It's quite effective! It's Arwa who lays claim to Zahir first, telling the nightmare spirit that Zahir is hers; it's Arwa who shows him how to kiss.
Traditional romance novels will often spend great length detailing the female protagonist's desirability from the male perspective; on some level, I suppose it's intended to indulge the need to feel desirable in the target audience but also veers off into self-objectification. (It's amazing how even in a genre written by women for women, one can't escape the male gaze!) But there's only the female gaze in Realm of Ash: Arwa's face remains veiled while she tells us about Zahir's beautiful features, his expressive hands.
Zahir is a bit idealized but it's not a masculine ideal you see very often in Western storytelling. Despite people moving away from the “alpha male” stereotype of romantic hero, there's still a cultural framework that establishes a very narrow definition of masculinity and labels anything different as, well, a deviation. That framework is missing here: Zahir is never measured against others in “maleness” and it's not unusual or going against the mainstream for Arwa to find him desirable.
What is unusual within the world of the novel is Arwa's desire to be an equal, despite her social status and gender, and Zahir's acceptance of her as such from the very beginning. That may be part wish fulfillment but I enjoyed it tremendously! It reminds me a bit of what I like so much about Harriet Vane and Peter Wimsey (my personal standard for heterosexual relationship dynamics in fiction): two fundamentally unequal partners building a relationship of equals, at least in part through the willingness to abdicate power on one side.
There's other thematic content to chew on too: imperialism, cultural heritage, gender roles, religion… The way Arwa suppresses then desperately seeks whatever she can find of her Amrithi heritage feels reminiscent of the immigrant struggle with assimilation. The Hidden Ones, the secret order of female mystics disguised as courtesans, are also a fantastic concept; I hope we get to see more of them if Suri writes more in this series.