THE HEARTLESS DIVINE

A modern young woman learns about her ancient past life in this debut YA fantasy.

College student and barista Suri is still searching for answers about the deaths of her parents in a mysterious accident when she was a baby. One day, she finds a boy with golden eyes bleeding outside the door of her fifth-floor apartment. As she brings him inside and wipes away the blood, she sees that he has a star-shaped scar over his heart. The boy, Kiran, doesn’t have any memory of how he got there—though he remembers, of course, that he’s a god. The student takes Kiran to see her grandmother, a seer and shop owner, who reveals that the god and Suri have been tethered to each other with dark magic. Centuries earlier (though Suri does not recall this), she was a princess and assassin of the Najan Empire. She was betrothed to a boy king with the understanding that she would murder him soon after marrying him, thus inheriting his throne and lands. Kiran, too, existed back then and saw Suri in a prophetic vision about the end of the world. As a love story centuries in the making unfolds across two remote timelines, Suri attempts to uncover the secrets of her parents’ deaths and her own shadowy past. Ravi’s prose is stylish and evocative, particularly in the sections that take place in the ancient land of Enesmat: “He led her out toward the outskirts of the city, toward the ports and the sea and the festivals. The air smelled of spices and brine, and for a moment, she felt faintly homesick. The moment passed, and she followed him down uneven, dimly lit streets toward an inn set on the water.” The plot is pure melodrama, and the author—a high school student—occasionally loses her grip on the characters, who never feel quite as fleshed out as they should. Information is sometimes repeated in a way that gives the book the feel of an early draft. But in its best moments, the novel manages to transport readers into a stirring fantasy saga filled with imaginative flourishes and unexpected twists.

A rich but sometimes messy tale about love across multiple lives.