This is one of those novels where I am glad there is a second novel coming! I feel as though every character that is in this novel is 100% necessary and that the climax and ending really did make me feel like they mattered and it wasn't "just because of main character syndrome" if you know what I mean. I think Amina's adventures are amazing and she gets herself into shit, but pulls herself out so so quickly. She is my top 5 favorite protagonists as she is just honest, funny and quick-witted. The world was so atmospheric and for this to have been my first SA Chakraborty novel, it has definitely set the bar high for her others. The pirates and the magical creatures and just everything that is encompassed in this novel just make my heart happy thinking about it again. Would 100% recommend this to anyone.

I love Chakraborty's Daevabad Trilogy, so I obviously leapt to read something new from her. I like this new direction she has taken, leaning less heavily into fantasy than she did in Daevabad, while still incorporating the fantastical.

Amina al-Sirafi is a great character. She is a no-nonsense ship's captain, who has retired to spend more time with her family (and avoid some parts of her past). A mysterious visitor pulls her back out onto the high seas for an adventure that does not go the direction she expects it to.

While Amina is a great character and narrator, there are no shortage of great characters in this book. Each one is so vibrantly written, with secondary and tertiary characters feeling as real as the Amina herself. Chakraborty has also created a amazing world for these characters to exist in, steeped in historical detail and peppered with fantasy. The latter is where she really shines in her writing, and I found those parts of the world to be more developed and more intersting.

I struggled a bit with the book in the first 1/4. I am not sure if it was my own disjointed reading or being launched into a completely new world. I think in part I needed a bit more world building, which is always hard with a first-person narration. Once I settled into the book, though, I was hooked and had a hard time setting it down.

Overall, I really enjoyed this book and look forward to seeing where the rest of the trilogy goes!

Realy enjoyed this book and I think it will have a good audience at my library. Definitely will be ordering.

this book was good! i loved the pirate aspects, and even though i haven't read shannon chakraborty's first works, i'm definitely excited to now because this book was full of adventure, mischief, and hilarity that i want in a book.

The best part of this book is the main character. She will be easy to sell. She's older, wiser, a mom and just unlike most heroes out there. This book is very different from the author's last series, but it has a lot of potential. This particular book was slow to get started for me, and if not for my great love for the author, I may have quit. I'm glad I stuck with it. About 70% in, the action picked up, I began to enjoy the characters more, and now I feel set up for the next adventure. I look forward to book two!

overall, this was a solid book. I enjoyed the characters and their histories and loved how dimensional each of the characters were. My main issue is that I didn’t love the storyline and the main cause for the adventure. I also don’t have the pull to continue the series. 3.5 stars rounded up

4.5 Stars rounded down, a unique tale of adventure in your third act featuring a middle-aged female adventurer

A great fun adventure romp, full of pirates, magic, evil sorcerers, exotic locations, romance, djinni, grudges, and a happily ever after(-ish). It's set in a medieval Indian Ocean, a melting pot of people and cultures. Amina al-Sirafi is a middle-aged mother of a cute ten-year-old, retired from a life as one of the most notorious pirates in the Indian Ocean. She's "invited" out for one last job by a rich woman from Aden, to rescue her granddaughter, kidnapped by a "Frank" (European). The plot then rattles along at a good pace, with events snowballing believeably into something far more complicated and dangerous than we first thought. The characters come across as real people, with their own personalities and in many cases a shared history that is often mentioned in passing, rather than through laborious exposition. The writing's good, with enough description to give good mental images of places, without getting bogged down. I liked that a lot of Chakraborty's storytelling choices are outside the typical range. The main character is a middle-aged woman who's competent but not invulnerable. The story is told from the point of view of the people of the western Indian Ocean, and celebtates their cosmopolitan makeup. The only European in the mix, Falco, is most definitely not a white saviour! One to read. It's a great ripping yarn, and I'm looking forward to the clearly-signposted next installments of the series.

This was SO good. I LOVED Amina Al-Sirafi, badass pirate and adventurer and also a 40-something-year-old mom. She wanted to stay home with her daughter and keep her safe, but she also craved adventure, and she spent a lot of the book trying to reconcile the two desires.

The characters were wonderful. Amina, of course, but also her chaos demon ex and her group of friends and former shipmates (deadly and interesting in their own rights) and the mysterious Jamal who is chronicling the story.

The adventure was rollicking and fantastical and of course every solution led Amina and her friends further from their safe lives and deeper into trouble.

I LOVED seeing through the eyes of a middle-aged Muslim mother -- who is also a pirate. It made everything new and fresh and enhanced the story so much. Because those aren't just descriptors - Amina's age and daughter and faith came into play in every decision she made. It's part of what made her feel so fleshed-out and real as a character.

The story is thick with magic and eventually you don't question it - you just go with it. I loved seeing all the magical creatures and beings and learning about them. One of my favorite things about reading diverse books is the exposure to legends and myths and magical creatures I am not familiar with.

I listened to the audiobook and it made everything even more magical and immersive. The narrators used different voices for each character and really made them come alive. I especially liked having one narrator for the story and one for the historical / chronicler sections.

I also really enjoyed how the narrator leaned away from the mic and muffled her voice when Amina was 'arguing' with Jamal about how the story should be told.

This is one I will definitely reread and I can't wait for a sequel!

*Thanks to NetGalley and Harper Voyager for providing an early copy for review.

Having never heard of this author before, I went into reading this book with zero expectations. To my delight, I was rewarded with a fantastic adventure tale full of pirates, djinn, sorcerers, and spectacular creatures. By far the best part was the heroine, a middle-aged woman with a sharp tongue who used to be a greatly feared pirate and is now finding a new place in the world.

I also loved the queer people represented in the story as well as the terrific descriptions of Muslim beliefs and Arab seafaring. I listened to the audiobook narrated by Lameece Isaaq and Amin El Gamal, who both did a wonderful job; Isaaq in particular brought Amina to life with plenty of emotion and depth to her delivery. If you do listen to the audiobook, the publisher has a pdf on their website with a glossary and bibliographic references.

The end of this book clearly sets up a sequel and I would be happy to read more. I would also be happy to read Chakraborty’s earlier trilogy.

I will read anything S. A. Chakraborty writes. Her worlds are so fully realized, so lush and rich with details, I never want to leave. Her characters are all well-developed and deeply interesting.

3.5/5 stars rounded up to 4. Overall I enjoyed this book, though I read it very casually. I wasn't as gripped as I expected to be for being a fantasy pirate adventure.
I always love a good strong female character though and thought it was well written with solid descriptions and great fantasy beasts.

Thank you NetGalley for the eARC!

The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi was an incredible ride! I loved her relationships with her daughter, mother, and crew. The banter and jokes had me laughing out loud at times. This story of a female pirate pulled out of retirement and away from her family kept me engaged from start to finish. High adventure, magic, pirates, magical creatures, high stakes, and LOVE. This was a great book, and I'm so happy to have read it. I will recommend it to anyone who loves fantasy and adventure. I new beforehand that Chakraborty has very clever characters and dialogue, which drew me to the book in the first place, and I'm so glad it did.

I LOVED this book! If you find yourself wanting to read a book with that "classic fantasy" vibe but set in a completely new and different setting, you will also LOVE this book! I found this book so refreshing and so easy to read. The world building was easy to jump right into. I did about half e-book and half audio and would HIGHLY recommend the audio. The narration is wonderful and the little fourth-wall breaks are so fun.

Chakraborty has created a diverse, deeply feminist historical fantasy that is heartfelt and passionate while celebrating motherhood, faith, and magic. But at its heart, this book is a fantastically enjoyable read with the most lovable mismatched crew.

Thank you SO much to Avon and Harper Voyager for the advanced copy! The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi is OUT NOW!

I thought this was a decently solid pirate fantasy. Amina the character is what really carries this story and makes it enjoyable. The plot was a bit lackluster and too drawn out but Amina herself and her crew are the main reason why I didn't DNF. I think it was a little bit too long and the audio narrator didn't quite feel like the right choice for this story. My two notes while reading:
-The court thing with the avian creates was so cringe [I have no recollection whatsoever about what this means]
-I swear to god I thought this book was set in the 1400-1500s [Again, I have no idea why I thought that or if I was even actually wrong??]

The story felt forgettable but I liked Amina so much that I will probably still read the sequel.

To the shock of no one, Shannon Chakraborty does it again. Her atmospheric and transformative writing always intrigues me from page 1. Chakraborty has been an instant-buy author for me since City of Brass, and I cannot wait to see what other stories have yet to come.
4.5/5

The notorious pirate captain Amina Al-Sirafi is called out of retirement/hiding for one last job, a rescue, that will set up her family for life. But the rescue isn't as simple as she was led to believe. With her old crewmates, she is soon caught up in a rescue of someone who might not want to be rescued and pitted against a man with unnatural and vast powers. And Amina wants to be on the ocean on her ship, but will she be able to make it home to her waiting daughter who needs her.

I loved this book so much. It's so rare to see a middle aged woman and mother as a protagonist for a swashbuckling fantasy novel and I love to see it. The structure of the story was a bit different so that was fun too. I enjoyed the heisty-ness and all the side characters. I did feel like the villain was a bit one note, but that was okay. I really wanted to know more about the powers that Amina's husband had an how they would impact her daughter, but I guess that's a story for the future. I also liked how even though the good guys were righteous, they were complicated . The book doesn't shy away from the fact that pirates are actually criminals no matter how much they are romanticized. Definitely enjoyed and would recommend.

Thank you Harper Voyager, Avon books, the author, and @netgalley for the advanced ebook!

There’s nothing better than a swashbuckling tale that takes place on the high seas. The Adventures of Amina Al-Sirafi by Shannon Chakraborty is one of those tales, and one well worth reading if this type of story is your cup of tea. It’s also worth reading if you’ve been underwhelmed by pirate yarns of publishing yore—Chakraborty’s book takes place in a magically infused version of the 12th century on the Indian Ocean, for one, which is not a common location for well-known pirate stories we’ve seen from, let’s say, Walt Disney Studios. The book’s protagonist, Amina, is also not your usual nakhudha (captain). She is a middle-aged woman who is formidable and courageous and, frankly, a little worse for wear at this point in her career.


At the beginning of the novel, Amina is retired and living a quiet life with her mother and daughter. She misses the sea, but she left her beloved ship, the Marawati, after her demonic husband (at the time—Amina has taken on multiple husbands in her life, with some marriages only lasting a night or two) destroyed her crewmate’s soul after an ill-fated deal. The trauma of this unnatural death scarred Amina and the rest of her surviving crew, and they all disbanded after locking her chaos-seeking lover in a trunk and leaving him for dead. For the past 10 years, Amina has lived on land and in anonymity.

[Rest on Tor.com, here: https://www.tor.com/2023/05/18/review-the-adventures-of-amina-al-sirafi-by-shannon-chakraborty/]

Eh.

I am shocked that I didn't thoroughly enjoy this book. I was sure that this would be at least a 4 star read for me, if not a 5 star read. I realize that a lot of that came from the GORGEOUS cover and the premise being oversold.

This is historical fiction, and while I can respect liberties taken in fiction, especially with fantasy elements, some of the historical inconsistencies seemed like poor research and not deliberate choices.

The plot was boring, the characterization inconsistent, and this really read like a modern character trying to blend into the past.

Also, the continuous appropriation of a culture that is not her own (by the author) is extremely exhausting. If it had been done well, perhap some forgiveness could be given but that was not the case.

“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”

Amina is the embodiment of badass and and I 👏🏻 am 👏🏻 here 👏🏻 for 👏🏻 it 👏🏻

After devouring Daevabad, I absolutely love seeing adult content from Chakraborty. It goes so well with the story given the saying “I curse like a pirate” and boyyyyy did Amina absolutely knocked this out of the park.

The story starts very slow but picks up all of a sudden and it’s just so so well done. Once the action starts you get hooked in and cannot put the book down. Chakraborty’s imagination is wide and vast and seeing this new world through her eyes was amazing.

The shocked laugh I let out when Amina came across Daevas could have qualified me as insane but I love when authors have little cameos and Easter eggs of their others books and series!!! When Khayzur mentions slaved souls in rings white talking about the Transgressions MY HEART LEFT MY BODY thinking of my precious Dara 😭😭

The world building was excellent. Having read Daevabad previously definitely helps a lot as I am now more familiar with the folklore and certain culture specific words. I love the incredible guides Chakraborty gives us in her books, they are magical and help the reader a lot!!

I cannot wait to see what Amina’s next adventure will be!!!

“I can snap a man’s bones with these legs”