in isolation by a mysterious, often absent mother known only as The Lady. The Lady sends her to the capital of the global empire of Aritsar to compete with other children to be chosen as one of the Crown Prince’s Council of 11. If she’s picked, she’ll be joined with the other Council members through the Ray, a bond deeper than blood. That closeness is irresistible to Tarisai, who has always wanted to belong somewhere. But The Lady has other ideas, including a magical wish that Tarisai is compelled to obey: Kill the Crown Prince once she gains his trust. Tarisai won’t stand by and become someone’s pawn—but is she strong enough to choose a different path for herself?"
I am conflicted about this book. Taking into account this is a debut novel I am really really impressed and I am looking forward to seeing more from this author as she grows. I really wanted to love it and part of me did. I loved the mixing of different cultures and the African setting. It is unique, individual, and I am thrilled by the explosion of POC fantasy books on the market. It’s just really great seeing new authors telling stories about their cultures. The book mixes cultures that took inspiration for Africa, France, Korea, China all mixing and merging was beautiful. It was also interesting to think about a world where the African continent was the most powerful and how would that make our own world look.
It was also an interesting critic on colonialism and the dangers of unity rather than equality that never turned didactic. Ray bearer is a novel that understands empire’s tremendous and insidious power. That they can eat holes into the bulwarks of many cultures, destroying entire edifices, and it can be very, very convincing while it destroys them. I wondered again—for the thousandth time—if that is the truest death: being slowly rendered invisible.
The actual writing style had some really lovely moments and I felt grounded in the story's setting and tone.
I also enjoyed the asexual representation however it was blink and you'll miss it. I wish that was explored more.
However something was missing for me in the book as a whole.
I wish there was an exploration of polyamory. I genuinely thought that was where this book was going to go from the opening scenes and the blurb and I was excited to see and explore that dynamic. However, it turns out that most of the characters split off very neatly into couples. I think this is unlikely. If you are all telepathically connected, have been together since childhood, and literally sleep in a puppy pile of the floor every night...well.
On that note I really wanted more interactions between the people in the Ray. We only know Sanjeet, Dayo and Kirah. I can't even remember the names of the rest of them. There is one sweet scene where the girls are having their hair braided...but that was it. I really felt that is undercut the emotional depth of the book. One of the main themes of the book is Tarisai finding her "found family" where she can be loved and excepted, but then we get no sweet family interactions, it was disappointing and a waste of potential. The other cultures aren't fleshed out enough either to ground the characters, some are literally boiled down to ohh Chinese name, farm rice. Right... just feels lazy.
The main antagonist, "the lady" was unfortunately less then terrifying. It was hard to relate to Tarisai's fear of her. It felt like the author was trying to get across she had the potential to be a good person, but through the evils of patriarchy she became evil. I mean...sure not being appreciated and abandoned can make us do terrible things but raping a man, abusing your daughter and trying to kill a child. Well, I think that's just you, not the patriarchy. Thus the Lady trying to garner sympathy honestly just sounded like a delusional user.
The plot was all over the place. I was hooked the first third. It was gripping and made sense and was full of life. Then it slumped for the second third. It felt like a chore to keep reading at points and I had to take a break from it, which I almost never do. I felt like the author brushed over meaningful events that would have been interesting to explore, and focused on things that weren’t very interesting. Furthermore, throughout the story it felt like certain events just conveniently happened in order to drive the plot forward.
The entire Redemptor arch felt very tacked on and just didn't seem to sit well with the rest of the book, it was introduced to late and had no grounding. The climax(es?) were meh. Things finally started to pick up again in the final third of the book, and I was back into it. There were a few interesting twists and a good climax that seemed to occur a little early in the book .... but then there were like 50 more pages of confusion ... and another climax that I was not expecting at all. It set the book up to continue the series, but it was just so jumbled and really left me uninterested in the direction of the series.
I think overall this book would have been much better if it had slowed down with the plot, taken time to flesh out the characters, dynamics and world building more. Give us small personal moments with the other people in the Ray. Show us why they all love Tarisai, show us why she loves them. Display the characters different cultures and how they interact with each other. This could have been a large scale, epic, sweeping novel spanning continents with rich and lush cultures.
Age Rating 15+. Nothing untoward, some vague allusions to sex. However the rape that the Lady performs, while off page still isn't appropriate for younger audiences.
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