Everyone loves a good ol’ cliffhanger and you’ll get just that in this debut YA fantasy! Somaiya Daud’s Mirage follows Amani, a young girl growing up in a poverty-stricken village on a planet called Cadiz, the daughter planet of Andala. Post “purge”, a coup staged to conquer the Andalan government and territory, inflicted by the barbarous Vathek authority. Since the invasion, Amani and her family have been living in fear for their lives. There has been the ever looming threat of rebellion as well as death, or if they’re lucky, brutal beatings by Vathek drones.
The day of Amani’s Majority Night, a spiritual blessing into the life of adulthood, she is kidnapped by Vathek drones and taken to the palace of King Mathis, the Vathek conqueror of the neighbouring planets. Amani is quickly forced into living as a body double for the Princess of Vath and heir to the throne, Maram vak Mathis. Living under constant threat of assassination, the physical and emotional abuse from the royals, along with studying the Vathek, history, ancestry, and customs, Amani is in way over her head. She risks her life every day for a brutal princess and is forced to fool all of the Vathek royalty into thinking that she is in fact Maram.
Somaiya Daud’s debut novel is a story of rebellion, empathy, and love in a time of warfare. Amani is a likeable character who rationalises all of her actions and can see the better in her fellow characters despite their cultural and political differences. She genuinely is a good protagonist and narrator for the story. She is sassy, unapologetic but understanding of her situation in the palace and does not unnecessarily risk her life to do something stupidly heroic as most YA female protagonists do (*hem hem Allegiant hem*).
However, I was not fully invested with the love interest in this book. It was pretty flat and “unship able” due to his involvement with Maram. It was insta-love as per usual, but we have grown, as YA readers, to expect that in most of our books. The love story will most likely become more fleshed out as the series continues. I really appreciate how it did not take away from the political intrigue and danger at the forefront of the story, not undermining the plot and actual point of the rebellion. It was not a bad love story, but also not the best.
Mirage is an intriguing book. However, it is not non-stop action or keep you on the edge of your toes writing, but, I believe it was a good first book for a series that will keep getting better and better with every instalment. For comparisons sake, this is the Three Dark Thrones to the rest of its series. Setting up the political discourse, the spite within the character arcs, and the plot that will grow more and more with every book.
Overall, I really enjoyed it and anticipating the next instalment. Daud has announced that Mirage will have at least three books in the series, the second remaining untitled, but is to be released in 2019.
Mirage is now available from Amazon, Book Depository, and other good book retailers.
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Synopsis | Goodreads
In a star system dominated by the brutal Vathek empire, eighteen-year-old Amani is a dreamer. She dreams of what life was like before the occupation; she dreams of writing poetry like the old-world poems she adores; she dreams of receiving a sign from Dihya that one day, she, too, will have adventure, and travel beyond her isolated moon.
But when adventure comes for Amani, it is not what she expects: she is kidnapped by the regime and taken in secret to the royal palace, where she discovers that she is nearly identical to the cruel half-Vathek Princess Maram. The princess is so hated by her conquered people that she requires a body double, someone to appear in public as Maram, ready to die in her place.
As Amani is forced into her new role, she can’t help but enjoy the palace’s beauty—and her time with the princess’ fiancé, Idris. But the glitter of the royal court belies a world of violence and fear. If Amani ever wishes to see her family again, she must play the princess to perfection…because one wrong move could lead to her death.
