In her debut novel, EMPIRE OF SAND, London-based author Tasha Suri crafts a dazzling epic that is sure to enthrall fantasy and non-fantasy readers alike. Set in a world inspired by Mughal India, the book presents an engaging, relatable heroine who struggles to survive in a world seemingly designed to destroy her. That very world is intriguingly drawn out but sometimes not fully fleshed out, leaving readers to want that much more.

Mehr, our heroine, is a child who has one foot in two worlds and is simultaneously of neither. Her father is a member of the aristocracy of the Empire of Ambha, a governor of the province of Irinah. That very power allows him to protect Mehr, whose maternal heritage is loathed by the people of Ambha. Her mother, who long since left Mehr and her little sister, is Amrithi, a people who can channel dreamfire, a mystical substance that rains down during magical storms. Descended from daivas, semi-divine spirits that have close ties to the gods, the Amrithi are both hated and feared by the Ambhan establishment.

"Tasha Suri crafts a dazzling epic that is sure to enthrall fantasy and non-fantasy readers alike.... [T]he book presents an engaging, relatable heroine who struggles to survive in a world seemingly designed to destroy her."

In her father’s household, Mehr is both a valuable commodity --- a marriageable noblewoman, albeit of illegitimate birth --- and someone to be feared, possessed of powers that frighten the Ambhans. She dreams of dancing the Rite of Dreaming, a ritual performance that connects her to the dreamfire, but she is forbidden from doing so. However, when Mehr oversteps the boundaries set by her father to help an Amrithi friend in distress, her world is turned upside down --- and she finds herself forced to serve the imperial elements that work to marginalize her people.

Suri beautifully sketches Ambha and its people into a vivid, lively universe that makes readers want to dive in and understand the history of every palace Mehr enters, every daiva that appears. So it’s understandably disappointing that the nature of dreamfire, the Amrithi relationship with the daiva, and the rites Mehr and the other Amrithi enact aren’t fully explained. The world-building is teased but not fulfilled, leaving readers wanting more and feeling frustrated that they might not understand how Mehr manages to do what she does.

Either way, EMPIRE OF SAND is the first book in a series that this reviewer is certainly excited about.