The Archer’s Heart Book 1

Astrid Amara

Completed 3/3/2018, Reviewed 3/4/2018

4 stars

I actually liked this book of court intrigue.  At first, I found it pretty dry despite the gay love story subplot.  But soon I found myself caught up in the decision of who will be king.  Even the gay subplot becomes more intense as we find out homosexuality is punishable by death.  This Lambda Literary Award nominee for SF/Fantasy/Horror kept my attention.  It’s the first of a trilogy, so now I have to decide whether or not I’m going to read the rest of it.

The plot is actually quite complex.  Marhavad is a kingdom ruled by a regent.  There are two princes vying for the throne, both sons of the king, but half-brothers.  They are now of age and the regent has to choose one of them.  The people of the kingdom have taken sides as well, and the choosing of one over the other may cause civil war.

Enter Keshan, a lord who has prophetic visions.  He has foreseen himself bringing down the caste system that governs the lives of the people of Marhavad.  He supports the prince who says he will help dismantle the caste system.  But Keshan becomes distracted when he falls in love with the other prince’s younger brother, Jandu.  Jandu is not part of the court intrigue.  He is perhaps the greatest archer in the kingdom, rather full of himself, and quite closeted. 

The plot takes more twists and turns and has more major and minor characters, too many for a summary.  I found it quite interesting after a while.  Everything becomes more immediate and profound when Jandu witnesses the execution of two men found guilty of sodomy.  But it was hard to take sides when both princes have their good and bad points. 

Keshan and Jandu are the best drawn characters.  Since their subplot takes most of the book, they get the page time to be the most well-developed.  There’s another character Tarek, who is also well-developed.  Tarek is from the second caste while all the other characters are from the highest caste.  Tarek has no love of Jandu’s brother, and aligns himself with the other prince.  If this prince becomes king, Tarek is promised to be elevated to the top caste in return for his loyalty and service.  But Tarek has a secret too.  He has an intense self-loathing for his own homosexuality. 

There is also a system of magic and a race of magical beings which come to play in the book.  The magic is complex, based on spells, which in turn are actually invocations of the magical beings.  While we get to see some of this, I’m guessing it comes more into play in the later books. 

I was going to give this book three stars, but I found myself totally enrapt at the end.  Even though you know what is coming, I thought it was written well.  Especially knowing that it’s a trilogy, you know it can’t end well.  But I really liked the journey.