Published: February 2023
Pages: 483
Series: Amina al-Sirafi #1
Summary
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.
My thoughts
I was looking forward to this book a lot. The cover is gorgeous, the Fairyloot edition is stunning, and I was really intrigued by the plot. In general, Chakraborty has been recommended to me so many times because of her Daevabad Trilogy (which I still need to read) so this was a great opportunity to read some of her work.
“For this scribe has read a great many of these accounts and taken away another lesson: that to be a woman is to have your story misremembered. Discarded. Twisted.”
The writing is wonderful. This is such an easy book to read but with a great balance of worldbuilding, dialogue and narrative. I was gripped from the start, there was tension, mystery and a supernatural feel. Show me more! So I kept reading..
I really enjoyed that the female main character was older and a mum. She is a total badass and does not put up with any nonsense and at the same time she loves her daughter more than anything. It is captured as a strength instead of a weakness and I loved that. Everything she does she does it for her child, it’s what drives her and I really liked seeing it captured in such a way. One of the main messages of this book is about identity, independence and being able to chase your dreams – mums can do that too. You can do whatever you set your mind to. Amina embraces her role as a mother and she sees her child as a gift and she is ruthless when it comes to protecting her family.
“I wanted to travel the world and sail every sea. I wanted to have adventures, to be a hero, to have my tales told in courtyards and street fairs, where perhaps kids who’d grown up like me, with more imagination than means, might be inspired to dream. Where women who were told there was only one sort of respectful life for them could listen to tales of another who’d broken away—and thrived when she’d done so.”
I loved the first half, it was a bit of a slower pace to get all the characters together and start building up the situation at hand and Amina’s history. I love a reunion “getting the band back together again for one last hoorah!” sort of thing. It speaks to me, I don’t know why, I just love it.
“For this scribe has read a great many of these accounts and taken away another lesson: that to be a woman is to have your story misremembered. Discarded. Twisted.”
However, the second half of this book was complete bonkers. It felt like I started reading a totally different book in a different genre. The story took a sudden turn, I am pretty sure there were flying cows at one point. Is this what it feels like when you’re on a trip? It felt like a strange, kaleidoscope coloured dream. I was bewildered but not in a positive way.
The plot took a backseat to all the craziness that started and I lost myself in what Amina was here to do, why she was there, what was even happening?
The bad guy frustrated me to no end, he had no depth at all. I have no idea what his intention or what his ‘why’ was, it was more like “I’m evil, believe me when I say I’m evil, I’m now going to do evil things.” I was expecting depth, what’s the driver, what is to be achieved, what are the stakes.. why?
I loved the lore and the culture. I wish I saw more of Amina’s adventures instead of getting just the highlights. I wanted to read this badass sailing on the seas, it started off like that but it became a bit weird.
“The gang all back together . . . we should rob something!”
Would I recommend?
I’m not sure I would. Unless you love books that take you on a very wild ride where you are questioning what is real and where things went wrong. I’m a bit disappointed, it was just too disjointed for me and I couldn’t see anything logical to the events so unfortunately, it’s not a series that I’ll keep reading.