Book Review: “Traitor to the Throne” by Alwyn Hamilton

Amani is back in this exciting follow-up to “Rebel of the Sands”. You may remember my liking the first book quite a lot in my review of it, and luckily for all of us the second book doesn’t disappoint.

Firstly, although this should be obvious, the simple fact of this being a sequel means my review might necessarily contain spoilers for the first book. Just thought you should be aware up front.

My big fear with this book was that this series would follow the YA trend of having each book in a series follow a different character rather than staying with one protagonist throughout a series. Thankfully, Amani is the character we’re back in the head of and thank goodness for that. Her story isn’t nearly done and she’s got some interesting growing yet to do.

The book opens with a jump ahead in time from where the first book left off. We quickly learn that Amani got shot fighting for the resistance and Jin in his fear for her took a dangerous assignment behind enemy lines to keep his mind off the possibility of her dying. Amani is not particularly enthused about that decision which drives something a wedge between them. This brings up an interesting shift in their dynamic, and the two end up wrestling with trust issues throughout the book.

Trust issues made all the worse when Amani, through circumstances I won’t elaborate on to avoid spoilers, ends up a prisoner of the Sultan and bound to his will via a piece of bronze implanted under her skin. Bronze, you see, allows one to control those with Djinni blood like Amani if you know their Djinni father’s true name.

This series is one of the few I’ve read that makes use of true name magic and that I actually enjoy. Usually true name magic doesn’t appeal to me because it’s handled in such a way as to invite deus ex. The bad guy is way too powerful because of the true names he knows and something that breaks the rules has to happen to make him beatable. Or the bad guy is completely unstoppable until, “Hey! We’ve got your true name! All we have to do is say it and you’re defeated! Score!”. In this series, though, true names aren’t all powerful on their own. They also have to be used in the right way, and there are rules governing their use that have to be followed for the magic to work. People who have the true names of Djinni can make themselves quite powerful with them, but there are still ways to stop them without breaking the established canon. This is one of the things that I really admire about Alywyn Hamilton’s storytelling.

Anyway, because Amani spends much of her time conducting espionage in the Sultan’s palace there isn’t as much action in this book as there was in the first. That’s fine, though, for a number of reasons. One, Amani’s time inside the palace is full of suspense and keeps you biting your nails for her safety even when she isn’t being attacked. Secondly, because it lets us see a whole new side of the conflict and opens up the world in ways that really raise the stakes and expand the scope of the conflict. If you thought the characters were facing insurmountable odds in “Rebel of the Sands”, you haven’t seen anything yet.

Also, and thank goodness, the writing in this book does away with the big gripe I had about the first book. You may remember in my review of the first book my mentioning an odd phenomenon where the characters would suddenly shift into a “teenagers in high school” mode and sound very modern and out of place. I didn’t find one time in this novel where that happened and it made the entire experience much more immersive and enjoyable.

All in all, I rank “Traitor to the Throne” four out of five stars for “I really liked it”. I’d recommend this sequel to any fans of the first and fantasy fans in general.

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