So, I was right! Letting you all look at my shameful list of accidental DNFs really got me moving. This week, I managed to finish To Bargain With Mortals by R.A. Basu, So Let Them Burn by Kamilah Cole, and its sequel/conclusion It Ends In Embers.

Let's talk about about the first one in this post and I will get back to you after I've had a day or two to process Kamilah's books, because I am still traumatized (in the best way possible).

TO BARGAIN WITH MORTALS by R.A. Basu

Poppy has access to divine power that used to run freely through many of the families of her island before their home was violently colonized and their ancestral practices were criminalized. Which is only made more complicated by the fact that she is the adoptive daughter of the Viscount--the highest ruler on their island and a direct representative of the empire. She has spent the last few years away at school, where she has learned how to play the game. Now, she is determined to get power for herself, which she hopes to use to improve the island. However, her plans are derailed when she is kidnapped by the leader of a notorious crime family who hopes to use her to secure his brother's release from jail.

I wasn't completely sure how I was going to feel about this one going in. I love a re-connection story. I think they are incredibly important. Especially in this part of the world, where a large portion of Black and brown people are disconnected from their ancestral homes and communities to some degree. However, a lot of times, when a central character's story involves their efforts to rescue their people from a place of privilege, authors end up in a little bit of trouble. I don't want to get into all of the nuances of why those types of stories don't usually land for me, but I will say that the pitfalls I was watching for did not happen here.

I thought Basu did a phenomenal job navigating conversations about disconnection, colonialism, identity, privilege and the fight for liberation.

Poppy grew up in privilege. There is no way to deny that. Her father is the single most powerful person on their island. Her father's cousin rules the entire empire. And the man she is preparing to marry is completely prepared to fill very big shoes. As a woman, and as a brown-skinned woman at that, Poppy is at disadvantages comparatively, but she has a plan for that. She is going to marry a powerful man and leverage her privileges to improve both of their positions.

The problem? Days before their marriage, she uncovers her betrothed plot to marry her, use her to inherit her father's political position, and then frame her for crimes she never committed to get her out of the picture. So when she is kidnapped by Hassan--a local crime leader--she discovers an opportunity to pivot and to empower herself differently.

Like I said, one of the reasons that stories like this often fail, at least for me, is that they center a reconnecting person's power to save their people while almost completely discounting the power that marginalized people have to resist themselves. Which reinforces this idea that the only place change can come from is the top. And history has told us that is not only untrue, but unlikely to ever happen.

Basu handled that conversation very differently.

Poppy is disconnected against her will. She has the divine gift of her people but she has no clue how to use it. She is ignorant of the spiritual practices and disciplines necessary to engage with her ancestral power respectfully. She doesn't know who she was born to be or even what, exactly, her people have lost. Despite suffering because of her identity, she has no real grasp of what that identity means or comes with. Which means that while she may have opportunities to resist that her kin may not, she doesn't have the cultural competency to really speak for her people, or to adequately understand what restoration could even look like.

One of the things I loved about this story was that, instead of centering her efforts to save everyone, this story primarily focused on her fight to save herself. We watch as she fights to improve her position, and to take hold of everything she is owed by both her father and her nation. We see her grasping for power, while also deconstructing the conditioning that came with her privileges. As the story progresses, we see her realizing the importance of becoming safe for her people. Instead of a story where a disconnected hero goes home and learns how to channel her power so that she can then return to her position above everyone else, Poppy goes home and learns to remember who she is. And when she does find her power, she fights to create a system where her people can speak for themselves.

Yes, Poppy plays a role in resisting colonialism, but she is never a savior. She is a woman who is breaking herself free and trying to find herself. Reconnecting with her people, reaching for her gods, learning to see the world for what it is, and for what it can be, and then fighting for change, arms linked with everyone else in the margins.

In a lot of anti-colonial stories, the goal is killing a tyrant and replacing them with a "rightful" ruler. That never felt like the goal in this story. The goal, here, felt like change. Not just regime change. Structural change. And a structural change that required the voices of the most forgotten, not just hers. Which is important.

So yeah, I had a really good time with this story. I read it as an audiobook through the Libro influencer program. And I had a blast. The characters were well defined. I loved some of them. I wanted to punch others in the face. But regardless of how I felt about them, they all had nuance and agency and I enjoyed learning their motivations, strengths and weaknesses.

I can't wait to read the conclusion to this duology!

If you want to grab a copy, please make sure to use my link: https://bookshop.org/a/87137/9781964721682

Thanks!

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