I don't think it's appropriate for main characters in books to have the names of people I know. This was the main thing distracting me in Tasha Suri's "The Jasmine Throne", along with maybe too many one-off incidental character point of view chapters. Feels a bit like trying to have your close third person cake and omnisciently eat it. But it's a promising start to a trilogy that manages to have a self-contained plot arc with a solid resolution, instead of feeling like a single book arbitrarily divided into pieces.
There's something very satisfying about combining the sense of freedom in discovering your sexuality and the possibility of an existence true to your identity with Malini and Priya both being messy, complicated women, especially the openly manipulative side of Malini.
Let fantasy lesbians be monsters choosing to sacrifice human lives for the greater good.