Shannon Chakraborty (previously writing as S.A. Chakraborty) won a spot in my short list of “buy-the-next-book-in-hardcover-right-away” authors after I read her Daevabad Trilogy. I loved these books and ranked them as one of the best series that I read in 2021. When her latest book (the first in a new series) was released last year, I picked up The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi right away (paid links).
You can find my reviews of her other books here:
- The City of Brass (Daevabad #1)
- The Kingdom of Copper (Daevabad #2)
- The Empire of Gold (Daevabad #3)
- The River of Silver – short stories in the Daevabad universe
Here is the blurb:
Amina al-Sirafi should be content. After a storied and scandalous career as one of the Indian Ocean’s most notorious pirates, she’s survived backstabbing rogues, vengeful merchant princes, several husbands, and one actual demon to retire peacefully with her family to a life of piety, motherhood, and absolutely nothing that hints of the supernatural.
But when she’s tracked down by the obscenely wealthy mother of a former crewman, she’s offered a job no bandit could refuse: retrieve her comrade’s kidnapped daughter for a kingly sum. The chance to have one last adventure with her crew, do right by an old friend, and win a fortune that will secure her family’s future forever? It seems like such an obvious choice that it must be God’s will.
Yet the deeper Amina dives, the more it becomes alarmingly clear there’s more to this job, and the girl’s disappearance, than she was led to believe. For there’s always risk in wanting to become a legend, to seize one last chance at glory, to savor just a bit more power…and the price might be your very soul.
This book was a lot of fun and, while it is the start of a new series, it could also be read as a stand-alone novel, since the events of the immediate crisis are concluded in this volume. Amina is a wonderful protagonist as an older women with a rich history that is gradually brought into the current events of her new story.
The action was well done and I never felt bored for a book that runs almost 500 pages. The antagonist is suitably evil and threatening, although of course Anima’s quest encounters other bumps and complications along the way that add to the tension of the story.
I thought that the way that Amina’s quest ends nicely wraps up the current situation. However, she has to make a deal that opens her up to further adventures. I expect that she will feature in upcoming books, and I’ll be waiting to read them.
Given that this novel is also set in an ancient Arabia type of setting, I had to wonder if the world that Amina lives in could be the same as that of the Daevabad series, but I think I’ll have to wait to draw my conclusions on that.
Have you read anything by Shannon Chakraborty? Let me know in the comments (above).
Find more of my reviews here.