The Summary
ALONE AGAINST AN EMPIRE.
When Yash of Zeltah arrives in the fortress city of Honaq she is greeted as a barbarian, a simple pawn. Her marriage to prince Chej has been arranged, they say, to avert war. Yet she knows the truth, for the armies already ravage the land. A skilled and deadly assassin, there is more to Yash than any might suspect. Before another day can pass, she must defeat the masters of the nine towers—the plagues, magics, and monsters they control, the soldiers they command. Without raising an alarm, she must kill all who oppose her—even the immortal emperor. The lives and souls of Zeltah, the people and the land upon which they live, all depend on it.
Book Review
To protect her country, Yash, princess of Zeɫtah, accepts an arranged marriage to a prince of the threatening Empire. However, when one of the emperor’s Tower Masters reveals that armies are once again marching against her people, Yash is prepared – she is now in the heart of her enemy’s power, with a lifetime of deadly training and a mission. Before dawn, the Empire must fall.
The Wind that Sweeps the Stars is only 397 pages long, which is mid-range for fantasy, short for an epic fantasy novel, and short for the amount of stuff that’s crammed into it. Yash’s urgent mission and her decisive, practical mindset provide a clean throughline that anchors a respectable amount of lore, flashbacks, and two or three alternative POVs. The setting is high fantasy, focused on action and magic. The prose style is modern and clear, in the third person point of view. All the background work provides context for a climax much larger in scale than I was expecting from a standalone novel.
I enjoyed this book! There’s so much lore that the one-night action plot feels overburdened in places, but that was a pale complaint in the face of one of my favorite things: cool lady with knife! Yash is a well-written female character (there is a relevant spoiler here that I am not ignoring but shall leave for readers to discover), with elements that appeal to my specific tastes – she’s driven, direct, self-assured, and really good at kicking people in the face. She’s also a female action lead without a romantic subplot. Her relationship with the prince, consequently, is neither romantic nor strictly platonic, with a bonus of getting into cross-cultural gender, sexuality, and marriage norms.
Regardless of your romance preferences, Yash herself is still, just, really cool. She’s cool. She fights so many things and she does it with style. The supporting cast was interesting, the magic was cool, there were some beautiful and beautifully described locations, and there were a lot of exciting fight scenes. The finale gave me chills.
Special thanks to the author & publisher for the ARC!
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