asianamlitfans | Swati Teerdhala’s The Archer at Dawn

A Review of Swati Teerdhala’s The Archer at Dawn (Katherine Tegen Books, 2020)

Imprint: Katherine Tegen Books

On Sale: 05/26/2020

List Price: 18.99 USD

One thing I shouldn’t have done before reading Swati Teerdhala’s The Archer at Dawn (Katherine Tegen Books, 2020) was to look up the description of the book up on the internet first. The book is currently being advertised on some sites as part of a two-book series, so I was ready for this one to finish out the issues it set forth in the first in the series (The Tiger at Midnight). In any case, let’s let the official marketing burb give us some crucial information: “A stolen throne. A lost princess. A rescue mission to take back what’s theirs. For Kunal and Esha, finally working together as rebels, the upcoming Sun Mela provides the perfect guise for infiltrating King Vardaan’s vicious court. Kunal returns to his role as dedicated soldier, while Esha uses her new role as adviser to Prince Harun to seek allies for their rebel cause. A radical plan is underfoot to rescue Jansa’s long-lost Princess Reha—the key to the throne. But amidst the Mela games and glittering festivities, much more dangerous forces lie in wait. With the rebel’s entry into Vardaan’s court, a match has been lit, and long-held secrets will force Kunal and Esha to reconsider their loyalties—to their countries and to each other. Getting into the palace was the easy task; coming out together will be a battle for their lives. In book two of Swati Teerdhala’s epic fantasy trilogy, a kingdom will fall, a new ruler will rise, and all will burn.” I should have read this particular description because I would have been prepared for the fact that it was a trilogy. About two thirds of the way through the narrative, I got anxious. I was thinking to myself: there are too many open threads and the plot is moving too slow to resolve them. I was right because, well, there’s a third book! The biggest reveal is probably related to the whereabouts of Princess Reha. Part of the conundrum that Teerdhala has put herself in is how to extend the issue of the romance plot alongside the political intrigue that is occurring in her complicated world of shapeshifters, magic, and bonds with the gods. After the first in the series, it was quite clear that Kunal and Asha were an “endgame” type couple, so this installment had to throw something into the equation that would destabilize that. Teerdhala figures out how to deal with this issue while also making the political gamesmanship that was tracking throughout the second in the series end on an even more precarious note. For these reasons, the second in the series is supremely readable, especially over the last hundred pages. If I have a minor critique with this text, it is the one that plagues so many second installments in a trilogy, there is just quite a lot of set up. Indeed, I found myself very impatiently moving through the first half of the book, wondering where we were being led to. Nevertheless, Teerdhala has made quite the complicated and lush fictional world, one filled with enough tantalizing loose ends to make the third something that readers will be impatiently waiting for. As a scholar of Asian American literature, what I find particularly striking about this series is Teerdhala’s desire to make her fictional world unequivocally ethnic, with the schism between Dharka and Jansa bringing especially rich tension to the plotting. This kind of allegorizing of ethnic and social difference creates a politically dynamic speculative terrain that makes The Archer at Dawn rise above others in the genre.

Buy the Book Here:

https://www.harpercollins.com/9780062869241/the-archer-at-dawn/