I’m torn about these books - I love what Suri is doing with world building and mythology and once the story gets going, it really has momentum and is enjoyable.
And there’s a particular style of writing internal experiences that she uses for both Mehr and Arwa that I think distances me from them. I think it may be a description thing - that I often feel like she’s telling us how they’re feeling or having them tell us how they’re feeling. (As someone who can spend hours thinking she’s angry and nope, turns out I forgot to eat breakfast, that level of self awareness is unbelievable in a way that the daiva are not.) So it takes me ages to get into the story because I’m at a distance from the main character I’m supposed to be feeling with.
But the stakes and the narrative (and the dreams of empires, ugh, that part is so gorgeously done!) make me want to read more.