Review: Empire of Sand

Empire of Sand 
Rating: 4/5
Buy or Borrow: Buy
Source: Copy courtesy of the publisher! 

The Amrithi are outcasts; nomads descended of desert spirits, they are coveted and persecuted throughout the Empire for the power in their blood. Mehr is the illegitimate daughter of an imperial governor and an exiled Amrithi mother she can barely remember, but whose face and magic she has inherited.

When Mehr’s power comes to the attention of the Emperor’s most feared mystics, she must use every ounce of will, subtlety, and power she possesses to resist their cruel agenda.

Should she fail, the gods themselves may awaken seeking vengeance… 

I loved the sound of it when I was approached about reviewing this, Indian inspired adult fantasy...vengeful Gods...I was sold! Plus it's an own voices read so there's a lot of the authors heritage woven in! I was so ready to dive in and get sucked in to the world of the book and Suri's writing allows that to happen from the start! I was intrigued by Mehr and the magic, and I found the writing to be quite rich! The storytelling did really well at painting a vivid picture and I had a specific aesthetic in mind! 

I had an overall sense of foreboding, I knew something bad was going to happen, I just waiting for it to happen. I was on Mehr's side from the beginning, I disliked Maryam and honestly Mehr's whole situation to be honest. The world building was very well done, you see everything horrible (which feels like a bit of an understatement to be honest) that the Maha and the Emperor have done to the Amrithi people. I wanted them to go down, I'm not going to lie. But I got were Mehr was coming from, even if I wanted to scream at her not to do the thing at one point. I admired her, and how she was so true to her ancestry and the rites, she genuinely enjoyed doing them, and I enjoyed reading about them. I've read books before were the character kind of forgets all about all of that after a few chapters, but for Mehr they were strongly rooted in her character. 

As for Amun, I honestly really felt for him despite the fact I wasn't too sure about him at first. He didn't seem overly bad, and I warmed up to him more and more as the book went on. Much like Mehr did actually. I enjoyed the romance and watching them grow closer, and bond and have these little moments. I feel like it grew really nicely, and wasn't overly in your face but still had a nice presence. I was actually terrified at one point to the extent I was like "if he dies...I'm throwing this book across the room".  We have other interesting characters, although some of them did have me raging, the Maha for instance, was suitably evil and dark. I also loved the daiva and I was so curious about them, and I still want to see more of them! Especially as my perspective of them had changed by the end of the book. 

I did have one issue with this book, and that's the pacing. Normally I love books that build up the world, and have a steady pace as they build things up in general, but this one...it just didn't work. At least for me anyway. The beginning of the book was strong, but towards the middle it slowed down a bit, and I felt like nothing was really happening. When something did happen I was more excited that something had finally happened, than about whatever had happened and there was also a problem with over explaining things. 

Overall, while I did enjoy this, it has excellent storytelling and world building and a cinematic setting to it as well as intriguing characters...but things did meander and my attention was struggling to stay focused on the book after a certain point, but I did enjoy how things ended and how it was all brought to a conclusion! So just because I had pacing issues with this, doesn't mean I wouldn't pick up any of Suri's future releases, because I definitely enjoyed her writing and the picture she painted!