The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms
The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms - N.K. Jemisin
Yeine Darr is the ruler of one of the backwater High North kingdoms, but her mother was the daughter of the Arameri ruler of the empire before she walked away. One day Yeine is summoned to the capital by her grandfather and named heir. The only problem is that the number of heirs is now 3. They are expected to intrigue each other to death, presumably for the amusement of their dying grandpa.
But the Arameri family rule by controlling chained gods. Enslaved ever since the Gods' War, the god of Night, his trickster child, & others live forced to obey any direct command given to them by a fullblood Arameri. And they have a plan for a way out.
Whether Yeine will survive anybody's plans is not an issue. What is an issue is what will happen after.
Yeine tells her story simply, but it is interspersed with short recollections of her past or short conversations. Sometimes this can go very wrong, but N.K. Jemisin is a good writer & does it well. As well as trying to survive the succession and trying to help the enslaved gods, Yeine is also searching for the truth about her mother, who died just before Yeine was summoned to the capital. Was she the loving mother of her childhood, or was she as cruel as the rest of her twisted family in the palace?
I really liked this book. It was gripping to read, and has lots of intrigue & world-infusing magic & gods. Yeine is a fun character to read, passionate and impulsive, and Sieh, the child trickster god, is charming. Worlds with hidden secrets, like the truth about the Gods' War, are always fun, I love finding view-changing secrets in old scrolls & suchlike. If only it happened a little more often in real life.
The back of the book includes 4 pages of so of the sequel, The Broken Kingdoms. The first book focuses on the imperial family and the gods, & the next one is going to focus on ordinary people & how they deal with the changes wrought in this book. I'm anxious for the sequel already.