This was a great fantasy YA read. I loved the Indian setting and the different locations from the palace to the back streets of the city were all brilliantly realised. The story centres around the state of Ashoka which relies on magic to keep it safe. However, the magic is running out and other states are circling ready to attack. The Ivory key holds the secret to where more magic is hidden and so it is vital that it is found.
The rulers of Ashoka have recently died and their children are all seeking the key for very different reasons. Each of the four siblings are very different and have very different aims and ambitions. They begin the novel completely at odds with each other but as the story progresses, this begins to change. I liked the four different personalities but felt that they could have been portrayed more strongly. We were often told how they were feeling rather than being shown directly.
I loved the story line and thought that the magic system was brilliant. The different plot strands weaved together beautifully and I definitely got involved with each of the siblings, often groaning internally as they made another bad decision. They are each very human with faults that lead them to doing the wrong thing. There is a romance element too but this is very low key and it will be interesting to see how the romances work out (or not) in the sequel.
I thought that this was a great debut novel and look forward to reading the sequel. Thank you to Net Galley and the publishers, Clarion Books, for providing me with this ARC in exchange for my honest review.

I loved this India-inspired world. It reminded me of Indiana Jones without the negative views on the culture. I also LOVED the slow-burn romance and the representation in this book. I like how this is just a duology (I'm loving this trend) so I don't have to wait too long for the conclusion of the story. I highly recommend this!

Excellent story, I loved every page. Great adventure, witty well developed when needed characters and an interesting plot.

I knew I was gonna like the book as it’s inspired by an Indian tale and I’m sold for tales!

This book has everything you’ll looking for in an YA fantasy. A kingdom, a princess trying to save the world, secret societies, lost cities, political intrigue, siblings rivalry, dragons, treasure hunts and of course MAGIC.

The setting has mainly Indian references and I found it very interesting and enjoyed that a lot. The plot couldn’t be more satisfying for my taste. The magic system is well delivered and the storytelling is just amazing!

The characters were my favourite part of the book. So different but at the same time complementing each other characteristics. I loved to see them fail, grow and progressing in the book.

I suggest you read this book without a single doubt!

I really enjoyed this book! What an adventure.

The Ivory Key is a great book about the quest to get the key and the high stakes that come with it. Everyone needs The Ivory Key for their own reason, their own gain, and they ended up needing to work together to get it.

The two things that I loved most about this book was:
1. The worldbuilding in this book and how Indian-inspired the world is. It was a magical book to get lost into.
2. The slowburn romance that kept me coming back for me.

Overall, I highly recommend this book to lovers of fantasy and romance.

I really enjoyed this book! I’m hanging on by my fingernails for the next book to come out…talk about a cliffhanger! Good action with nice character development and ensemble cast. So much fun! A great book to savor.

A fantasy with courtly politics and intrigue that should appeal to fans of Megan Whalen Turner and Kristin Cashore.

I received an ARC of this book from NetGalley for my review.

This is a fairly enjoyable, quick read. I like the premise of the book and the plot was interesting enough to keep me going. However, I feel like this book skews towards a younger audience than YA. The characters are 2 dimensional and never really get fully developed. The antagonism between the siblings is all based on assumptions and evaporates with a few conversations. These are all young teens, whose parents have fairly recently died, but none of them seem that upset about that part of their history.

The "adventure" part of the story takes up the last 1/3 or so, but the puzzles they have to figure out seemed to be solved very easily by one of the siblings, and it never seemed like they were in danger, even when they kept saying they were.

I think a tween audience might be best for this book, but as an adult, I'd like something a bit more compelling, more nuanced and intriguing. I'm kind of curious as to what happens next, but to be honest, I'll probably forget all about this book by the time the 2nd one comes out.

I adore YA fantasy books and was so excited to be given the opportunity to read The Ivory Key in advance.

This book has many things that I enjoyed - a quest, dysfunctional siblings with individual personalities and problems, secret societies, magic, slow-burn romance, LGBTQ+ characters and rich, detailed settings.

I enjoyed the Indian-inspired settings and fantasy elements greatly and agree with other reviews which described this as 'Indiana Jones & the Temple of Doom, without the racism and white saviours.' This was a gripping read and I'm already looking forward to the next book!

This was my first book to read by this author and I can’t wait to read more!! The characters are so well written and really stick with you long after you finish this unique story. Do yourself a favor and read this now!!

I adored this! Filled with vibrant characters and compelling storytelling, this has all the potential to become a new classic within the genre.

Raman immerses the reader through vibrant world-building and compelling characters. There are four royal siblings in Ashoka: Vira, Riya, Ronak, and Kaleb. After their mother's death, Vira became the maharani, the leader of Ashoka and began her reign by losing an entire city to Lyria, a rival country. Riya is a runaway, living with the Ravens, rebels and thieves who only have the people's best interests at heart. Ronak is unhappy with his position as rajkumaara and plans to flee, taking Kaleb with him. Kaleb, who Vira imprisoned for the death of the maharani and who is half-Lyrian. As the country begins running out of magic, a vital resource that is deeply embedded in the daily lives and culture of Ashokans, the four siblings, along with Vira's personal guard, set out to find the Ivory Key and the lost magic quarries, each with their own gains in mind.

Each character, not just the siblings, has their own, clear motivations for their actions in the story. They're well-rounded and just as compelling as the protagonists and antagonists. This extends also the countries themselves as the war between them is rooted in the magic that is so central to the main plot of the story. Ronak skillfully weaves together this larger plot with the subplots and motivations of each of the protagonists.

All-in-all, this is a fun and engaging read for those looking to get away from fantasy based in western European culture.

I received an advance review copy from NetGalley for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

Our story is set in the South Indian city of Ashoka.  A country dependant on magic for the fortification of their city walls.  A city who recently lost their maharani.  We have 4 estranged siblings who must overcome their differences, work together and try to locate the Ivory Key, an item that their father was obsessed with. 
 
Vira is the new maharani of Ashoka.  She is determined to prove that she can be just a good a ruler as her mother, the previous maharani.  Vira knows that the last remaining quarry of magic has practically run dry, and without that magic, Ashoka will be defenceless from attack.  The Ivory Key is the only solution left to her.  She must try to find an alternative source of magic.
 
Ronak is raajkumara, twin to Vira.  He is desperate to escape Ashoka and his impending arranged marriage.  He has agreed to obtain the Ivory Key and sell it.  With the money he gets, he wants to free his brother Kaleb and start a new life far away. 
 
Kaleb has been wrongly imprisoned for killing his mother, the previous maharani.  He has spent his time, locked in a cell, his only visitor being Ronak.  Even Vira acknowledges his innocence of the crime he has been accused of, but this was a political move.
 
Riya is the sister who ran away and joined the Ravens.  To prove her loyalty to the Ravens, she is to steal the Ivory Key and return to them, with the key in her possession. 
 
As unlikely as it may seem, the 4 siblings will have to work together, using all their knowledge and skills if they want to retrieve the Ivory Key. 
 
From the very beginning I was drawn into this story, I loved the world building, and how the relationships between the siblings grew and changed.  This was a gripping read, and even though this is first instalment of the duology is due to be published in January 2022, I am already looking forward to the second instalment!  This needs to be added to your TBR!!

While I had a difficult time adjusting to the writing style, the plot and characters were amazing! This book was truly an immersive experience.

I received this book for free for an honest review from netgalley. #netgalley

I love so different cultures and aspects of this work it's definitely not one that I wouldn't really pair but it was wonderful and beautifully written.

Thank you to Netgalley and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Children's Book Group for providing me with an e-ARC of this book.

The Ivory Key is literally everything I've ever wanted from a YA book. I finished it in less than 24 hours, absolutely hooked on each word. Especially from a debut author - this is stunning.

The story follows four estranged royal siblings, forced to unite on a quest to save their kingdom. The family dynamics in the story stood out to me; each sibling has their own personal goal, which often conflicts with the interests of another sibling. Each one has their own life, their own conflict, and the way that they're set at odds with one another is endlessly compelling.
My favourite example of this is the relationship between Vira and Riya. Vira is the eldest sibling, the newly-crowned Maharani. She's struggling to rule a kingdom that's falling apart, and is willing to do anything to save it. She's the new queen of a country rife with problems and on the brink of war, and now she's left with the burden of her ancestors' mistakes. Her people hate her, her council won't listen to her, and her siblings won't talk to her.
On the other hand, you have Riya, the youngest sibling. She ran away from her family two years before the story starts, after an argument with her mother. After seeing the poverty and suffering in the kingdom, she quickly became disillusioned with the monarchy and the excesses of the ruling class. Riya joined a rebel group that hates Vira and her rule, intent on toppling the monarchy they perceive as corrupt.
You can see how that might cause a... significant amount of conflict within the story. And that doesn't even begin to cover the fraught family history, the betrayals, the tension. I could go on forever.

It'd be easy for a 'quest to bring magic back' to become an extremely cliched storyline, but Raman manages to keep the story fresh. I think the most compelling reason for this is that each sibling has their own personal motivation for wanting the Ivory Key, and their reasoning is not always necessarily noble. It's fascinating to watch how the personal relationships and political conflicts interplay with the siblings' common goal.

Special mention to the book's magic system - it's one of the most unique and interesting systems I've seen in a while. It also perfectly lays the foundation for what's going to happen in the next book, which I cannot wait to read.

Overall, it's a solid 4.5 stars. I'm so excited for this book's release and to be able to discuss this publicly because I have SO MANY THOUGHTS and can't bring them up because of spoilers. Pain. Anyway, mark January 4th 2022 in your calendars and pre-order this book ASAP!

Amazing world and story that is fully immersive fantasy that you won’t be able to put down! I will read everything from this author.

The Ivory Key is a solid YA fantasy, centering on an Indiana Jones-esque quest and a group of estranged siblings. You would, therefore, think that this book would be perfect for me. And I did enjoy it when I started! But as I read (and as the plot slowed down), my enjoyment waned a bit. And hence, three stars.

The story follows four POVs, each of the siblings. Vira, the maharani, is floundering as her country’s source of magic has been depleted, and finds herself chasing fairytales to replenish it. Kaleb, locked away in the dungeons, is accused of the murder of the previous maharani on account of his Lyrian heritage. Ronak, Vira’s twin, is doing his best to get Kaleb free, including going so far as to ally with a criminal enterprise to do so. And Riya, the runaway princess, finds herself sent back to the palace to infiltrate her sibling’s quest.

Let’s just take as read that I liked the basics of the book, that is, the characters, the worldbuilding, and the plot (for the most part). I won’t go into too much detail, but I did like them. I never struggled through the book in that sense. But I also never really loved it.

First of all, there was the pacing (and this is kind of a more general point regarding pacing that I dislike in YA, I suppose). Given that this book is compared to Indiana Jones, I’m sure I’m not alone in expecting that quest to take up the bulk of the plot. It does not. They don’t solve a single puzzle until just gone halfway. They don’t even leave the palace on the quest until 60% in. What were they doing before this, you ask? I actually couldn’t tell you. I don’t think there was anything of note that happened in that first 60%. It was about establishing the situation, the characters, the motivations, sure, but. I just felt like that could have been done perhaps while questing. Because I was expecting this quest to be a more major plot point. By the time it got going though, the plot had lost any real drive to it and never really got that back.

And then there was the second half of what I was promised: angsty estranged siblings. There was a lot of the reader being told what people felt, being told what they’d thought, but I never really felt what I was supposed to be feeling. All I could think of was that, if you want estranged family angst, you might as well just read Melina Marchetta. I suppose that’s a high standard to hold any author to, let alone a debut author, but that was the case for me.

This lack of feeling what the text wanted me to feel extended to the main characters’ romantic relationships too (which, there’s one major one, one hinted at). I couldn’t bring myself to care about either of them all that much (I was marginally more interested in Riya and Varun, though). And that’s probably what led to the ending missing the emotional impact it should have had, along with the fact that it’s a duology, and I’ve started to be primed for the way first books in YA duologies end.

That being said, I want to end on something I liked about the worldbuilding here, and that’s the fact that, not only is there no homophobia, but it also normalises same-gender relationships. There’s a character who casually mentions her fiancee, there’s another who mentions relationships she’s had with other women, Ronak tells Kaleb they’re going to find a nice boy for him… When I say it’s not enough just that there’s no homophobia, this normalising is what I’m looking for, so I loved that here.

Overall then, I’d say this is a solid debut, a book I did like, but perhaps not a book which I feel all that compelled to read the sequel of.

I had a really hard time getting into this story. To me, it just felt like there wasn't that much going on. I kept finding myself zoned out and had to go back to reread sections many times until I just gave up on it. I didn't connect much to the characters and didn't really care what happened to them. Most of the time I was just hoping it would end. I'm sure some will really enjoy this book but it just wasn't for me. Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for a copy of the arc in return for an honest review!

As with any multiple POV stories, I found myself drawn to some POVs over the others; The Indian culture woven into the story was magical and I really enjoyed the overall plot of the book. Definitely satisfied with reading this book and recommend it if it sounds interesting to you!