Surprise! I bet you thought Esme would get in the first review. Well… okay, you would be right because she does have one reviewed already, but it was before the contest started so HAHA here I am.
Much like Esme and her D20, I chose my first book with a D10, since decisions are hard and I am not good at them. So, off we go with a review of Beneath the Gods’ Tree by S. Kaeth.
Amanah knows all-too-well the dangers of catching the attention of the upper class of Arruk. Using her position as a guard to steal secrets of healing and help other lower class people means she works hard to remain unnoticed.
Fellow guard Taunos is boisterous, laughing, larger than life–and always around. He attracts attention as easily as breathing, which makes being associated with him dangerous. Better to stay far away, regardless of her attraction to him and his easy calm.
But when Amanah inadvertently insults a magistrate, she must flee the city to avoid his vengeance. She takes a last-minute job escorting a pair of noblemen to another town–a job Taunos is also hired for.
Along the way, she’s forced to reveal her stolen healing skills to keep the small group alive, and finds more support from Taunos than she ever would have dreamed. His confident charm becomes hard to ignore as he sees her as no one else has, even when she’s doing her best to be invisible.
But opening herself to romance might be as dangerous as the wildlife and bandits they face in the wilderness, and pursuing her dreams of becoming a healer could attract the ire of those in power.
Beneath the Gods’ Tree is the story of Amanah. She is havi, which is the lowest caste in the land where she lives. She lives in the city of Arruk, and works as a city guard with her brother, his boyfriend, and their friend. It’s her dream to join the healers guild, but they will not take havi as students, and it’s also very expensive to join. Havi are mostly treated like dirt, but especially Amanah and her brother, because of their specific clan. Amanah especially has been punished for things that she didn’t do several times over the course of her being in this city. It comes to a head when she inadvertently insults a magistrate, and ends up pretty much needing to flee the city before he makes her life a nightmare.
Coincidentally, around this same time her brother’s friend Taunos gets hired by two nobles to escort them from Arruk to a city in the north before a certain religious holiday happens and Taunos chooses Amanah, her brother and her brother’s boyfriend to accompany him and these nobles to their destination. One of the nobles seems to be generally an okay person, but the other one is frequently spiteful towards the havi, and he repeatedly lashes out towards them, punishing them for the slightest grievance.
I didn’t dislike Beneath the God’s Tree, though I found that it took longer to get into it as I would have liked. It wasn’t that I didn’t like it as much as I just didn’t have too much of an opinion on any of the characters until about halfway or so. It was written well enough, I just had trouble connecting with any of the characters. The havi, Amanah especially, just had injustice after injustice after injustice happening to them, and at one point I was like… I get it. You are abhorred in this society. I already feel for you, this is just making my eyes roll now. You’ve lived in this city for less than a year and you’ve been severely whipped and left to die, accused of theft multiple times, seduced and then abandoned as an elaborate joke, cheated by a corrupt magistrate, and then forced to flee the city. The main antagonist for much of the book couldn’t have gotten more villainous if he had climbed on top of his tent and twirled his mustache for a while like Dick Dastardly, sneering while being an asshole to his guards with little provocation, while his partner does absolutely nothing to stop or prevent any of it.
I really did like Taunos and thought he was a great character, and I enjoyed seeing the relationship between him and Amanah grow. His story starts out in another series by this author, so that backstory is hinted at, but you don’t need it to enjoy this story. Emin was my favorite character though, and the relationships between him and just about everyone else in the world was sweet because most things just seemed to roll off of him like water. The relationship between him and his sister is supportive and caring. I don’t think anyone could really hate Emin, even the nobles. I also liked that there didn’t seem to be any taboo against queerness in this world. Considering the amount of animosity towards the havi, I found that interesting, and honestly refreshing. I wish we got just a bit more of a look into his relationship with his boyfriend, Gurseh, because I can imagine that the level of cinnamon roll between the two of them would have given me diabetes and I would have been here for it. (Because I already have diabetes – muahahahaha)
The last quarter of the book was fun, and was hard to put down, so I found myself really invested in the story by that point, it just took a while to get there, is all. The characters that came in nearer to the end of the book were interesting and I really wish we got more time with them rather than focusing on the journey to get to their city.
All told, this was a pretty good read, it just took me longer than I had hoped to get to the good parts. As I mentioned, I think that if the story of the journey had been shorter and story of what happened at the destination had been longer, I’d have had a better time with it, but none of this was a dealbreaker by any means. I’d give this one a 6.5 out of 10. If you like low fantasy stories in a desert setting with scrappy characters who are lower caste in a higher caste society making the most out of their situation, you might just start right here.
superstardrifter 
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