The Adventures of Amina Al-Sirafi

A Novel

by

496 pages

English language

Published Dec. 20, 2023 by HarperCollins Publishers.

ISBN:
978-0-06-296350-5
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4 stars (3 reviews)

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. …

3 editions

reviewed The Adventures of Amina Al-Sirafi by Shannon Chakraborty

Very entertaining

4 stars

This was a great, captivating read. Truly an adventure book. I don't think there are many fantasy novels set in this region and it was an additional treat to read about places we mostly know from wars and crises, like Aden and Mogadishu, when they were in their prime. The characters are great and have interesting backstories. The main villain was perhaps a bit too one-sidedly evil. The others had more nuance. And I could have done with one or two fewer action scenes. But those are small criticisms. It was very enjoyable to read this book and I recommend it. I hope we'll see Amina and her crew again.

reviewed The Adventures of Amina Al-Sirafi by Shannon Chakraborty

The Adventures of Amina al-Sarafi

4 stars

Now this was the sort of pirate queen adventure I was expecting when I had read Deep as the Sky, Red as the Sea. (That book is historical pirate politics and internal musings about power and this book is more fantasy adventure; I liked them both, they're just different.)

Amina al-Sarafi is a middle-aged pirate queen who gets blackmailed out of retirement into "one last job", gets the criminal gang back together, and ultimately faces off against a sorcerer and his sea monster (as if the cover doesn't give you this hint). (Also, gender stuff! You love to see it.)

It's set in the same world as her Daevabad trilogy although you don't need to have read those books at all. (You might appreciate a single character briefly appearing as well as the lawyer parrots, but that's about the extent of it.) My opinion here is that this is …

reviewed The Adventures of Amina Al-Sirafi by Shannon Chakraborty

Once it got going, it was great

4 stars

It warms up slowly, but then it barrels along. This was fun. There aren't enough middle-aged women doing cool shit books, so that was a pleasure. Great rep. Wonderful to read a book that makes me miss evenings at the masjid. And the small twist for Dunya was also welcome and done well, imo. I look forward to reading the rest of the series.

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