Burn the Sea

by Mona Tewari

Burn the Sea is a lush historical fantasy that reimagines the Portuguese attacks on South India in the 1500s and the story of a fierce real-life queen. Abbakka Chowta, the youngest of Ullal’s two rajkumaris, has spent years in rigorous combat training to become her sister’s blade, never expecting to be queen. When the monstrous Porcugi—giant half-men, half-snakes who attack from the sea—return to claim Ullal after fifty years, Abbakka must test her definitions of strength, subterfuge, and statecraft. As she faces the choice of paying tithes or suffering total devastation, she must decide if marriage to a neighboring king will provide the resources to protect her people or if her homeland will be crushed by would-be colonizers.