Book Review: Black Salt Queen by Samantha Bansil

Black Salt Queen is the kind of debut that announces its ambitions from page one and almost always lives up to them. Published on June 3, 2025, and weighing in at 393 pages, it launches Samantha Bansil’s new series, Letters from Maynara, with an unapologetically epic sweep.

Setting & Premise

Bansil transports us to Maynara, a lush, pre-colonial island nation where elemental magic and matriarchal politics are inseparable. Queen Hara Duja Gatdula can move mountains, but her failing strength leaves a volatile sky-wielding daughter, Laya, and a calculating rival matriarch, Imeria Kulaw, circling the throne. Power is hereditary, dangerous, and finite, giving every decision a life-or-death edge.

Themes

At its heart, Black Salt Queen is about the cost of power and the vulnerabilities leaders hide. Mother–daughter tension, queer desire, and dynastic betrayal intertwine, all against a defiantly anti-colonial backdrop. Readers will recognize echoes of Southeast Asian folklore and Filipino history, yet Bansil refuses to pause for Western hand-holding; immersion is mandatory and rewarding.

Writing Style & Pacing

Expect prose that luxuriates in sensory detail—salt-sprayed sea walls, ceremonial fabrics, volcanic earth—and court conversations that bristle with double meanings. Lightspeed’s reviewer compared the deliberate build-up to Game of Thrones, and the parallel is apt: the first act is dense, even daunting, but once the pieces are in place, the final third barrels ahead with ruthless momentum.

Characterization

Bansil excels at mapping the complex loyalties of formidable women. None are straightforward heroes or villains; sympathy flips scene by scene, making alliances deliciously unstable. The sapphic threads—past and present—feel organic rather than performative, enriching both emotional stakes and political ones. Male characters exist. Still, the story’s gravity belongs unapologetically to its queens, warriors, and schemers.

Critique

The very richness that makes Maynara intoxicating can also overwhelm. Titles, honorifics, and magical terminology arrive rapidly, and readers unfamiliar with pre-Hispanic Philippine cultures may need the occasional pause to orient themselves. A handful of plot beats (an arena trial, a magically enhanced tonic) resolve quickly or feel under-explained, hinting they’re seeds for later books rather than payoffs here. None of these issues breaks the spell, but they do mark Black Salt Queen as a debut still sharpening its pacing blade.

Verdict

If you gravitate toward politically charged fantasy in the vein of Tasha Suri’s The Jasmine Throne or K.S. Villoso’s The Wolf of Oren-Yaro, Bansil’s island realm will feel like coming home—and then being promptly thrown into the surf during a typhoon. Black Salt Queen may demand patience, but it rewards that investment with sweeping stakes, morally knotted characters, and an ending that practically dares you not to preorder book two.

Recommended for

• Readers who relish court intrigue steeped in non-Western histories
• Fans of elemental magic systems with bodily costs
• Anyone craving complex, messy sapphic relationships set against empire-shaking politics

Skip if you need instant action beats or prefer tidy moral lines. Otherwise, dive in and let Maynara’s black-salt waves pull you under.

Last update on 2025-06-30 / Affiliate links / Images from Amazon Product Advertising API