Have you ever encountered one of those books that you just absolutely loved, but when you go to tell other people about, your mind goes pretty much blank and you can’t remember much of what you read? Yeah, this was this book in a nutshell. I loved this book! It had lots of adventure and had me hooked from the very beginning. I loved the elements of stories 1001 Arabian Nights woven through (primarily the stories of Aladdin and the lamp, Ali Baba and the 40 Thieves and Shahrazad and her stories). So, if you enjoy retellings of familiar stories, I highly suggest that you go buy this book when it comes out this May.

Bringing a fresh take and a new world built from the legends in “A Thousand and One Nights,” “The Stardust Thief” is the first in a fantasy trilogy I can’t wait to finish.

The story follows three characters as they search the mythical Sandsea for a lamp of legend hiding a powerful jinn. Loulie, a merchant of jinn relics; Mazen, the son of the sultan and his late, favored wife; and Aisha, a thief working for Mazen’s eldest brother, are not so much allies as forced acquaintances. I’ll confess the build in their relationships to each other felt a little slow at times (the women are especially mistrustful, not without good reason), but it’s a slow burn I can see paying off in the next book of the series. Just don’t expect immediate found family, as this first novel focuses more on their individual goals and wants — which often run contrary to one another. That being said, Loulie and her jinn bodyguard Qadir have a lovely friendship that really is the heart of this story.

The world building so far is rich, with brief interludes for tales in the form of “One Thousand and One Nights.” I suspect with that cliffhanger we’ll see even more sides of the Sandsea in the next installment.

Thank you to NetGalley and Orbit Books for the ARC!

This is such a stunning adventure!

One that weaves lush mythology and vibrant world-building to create an immerse narrative that you won't want to leave. It does an amazing job of incorporating the tales from ‘A Thousand and One Nights’ within a fresh and engaging plot. And the characters are such exciting travel companions every step of the way.

I have been desperate for something to fill the void that the end of ‘The Daevabad Trilogy’ created, and this fits perfectly. I can't wait for this series to continue!

Thanks to NetGalley and Orbit Books for providing an e-arc of this book.

I thought this book had a strong plot with well fleshed out core characters with the exception of Mazen. I felt like he was very ill equipped to be surviving a world of jinn and politics. He honestly seemed so helpless and often had to rely way to much on other characters. While he does get a bit of a backbone by the last 1/3 of the book, i found it frustrating that he never tried to better himself to better survive the main quest of the story. I hope in the next book he endeavors to learn fighting or really anything useful.

I loved that the fables of this world are interwoven as short stories throughout the book. I thought it was a clever and well done storytelling device. I loved learning the lore of this world and having it serve the plot as well.

Overall I thought this was a good book and I can't wait to read the rest in this series.

A fresh tale that pays homage to a great classic, The Stardust Thief, is the start of a new trilogy to look out for in the adult fantasy genre. The characters are engaging, the plot is quick with unpredictable twists and turns and the magic system is rich and unique. It is also quite nice to see your own (ethnic) name in a book, but I digress. I thoroughly enjoyed this and am looking forward to how Abdullah will grow as a writer in its sequel.

I enjoyed how the interstitial stories that paid homage to 1,001 Nights and oral storytelling. It was used effectively to evoke how the world felt.
However, this “telling” continued throughout, which shallowed the characters. Their inner thoughts would always explode out of them immediately into a forced dialogue and no resolution (“You’re bad!” “No, I’m good!”), which felt repetitive and simplistic. I expected an Adult Fantasy book to give characters more depth, the world more intricate, and the prose more poetic.

I liked the platonic relationship between Loulie and Qadir and Loulie’s chaotic nature. Aisha and Mazen, I’m not sold on, but I’m sure their time will come in the following installments.

This book was a joy to read and honestly I cannot wait for more in the series. It was fast paced, world building, and had strong female characters which was refreshing.

I have been really, really hoping to get a ARC - so THANK YOU NetGalley and the publisher for allowing me to read this before it drops.

Those who are looking for a new series after the Daevabad trilogy MUST pick this up when it drops! A completely different story with a thief and the world of djinns, ifrits, and madrids.

Lets talk about characters: I LOVE Loulie al-Nazari! She is a badass girl with sadness, humor, rage, and compassion. Her and her djinn, Qadir, are a perfect team. He loves her - platonically - as like a father and a friend, though she is a human, and she him. Though she comes with her own past which is known to him, his is unknown to her. We figure it out as the story goes on and you absolutely feel for both characters.

Mazen was one who took a bit of work to get me to enjoy and figure out. He is a sheltered, weak prince (not by fault of his!), and he longs to be someone different and have adventures like that of Loulie and Qadir. By plot, he gets that opportunity but it comes with unintentional baggage and a loss of identity. By the end of the book, I was happy to say that there IS hope for him and that I can see him becoming a hero by the end of the trilogy!

Finally, there is the wild-cat theif / djinn slayer, Ayesha. I absolutely loved her character arc throughout this and I can't wait to see where her story goes in book two! She has quite a path and a lot of interesting thoughts bouncing around in her head on what road to take on said path.

The plot is full of nods to the tales of Arabian Nights and other folklore regarding Djinn. Djinn are hunted and either killed or harvested for their blood (their blood has healing powers). The amount of secrets and twists in the story had me anxiously reading faster than my brain could keep up with my eyes.

If you enjoy stories with interesting characters, secrets, magic, and of course, finding ones-self, this is a great book to a very interesting trilogy! Book two soon, please! :D

This book is amazing! I loved all of the characters and it had so many twists I didn't see coming! The magic of this world was so interesting and the stories within a story were so fun to read about. I can't wait to buy this book or wait until the next one comes out!

This debut novel is the first middle eastern inspired fantasy trilogy and will definitely become your newest obsession. It’s definitely on my list of favourite books I read this year.

The Stardust Thief draws heavily from One Thousand and One Nights, specifically the story of The Forty Thieves. It’s told from 3 PoVs: a criminal who smuggles and sells illegal magic, a cowardly prince and a jinn hunter who works as a member of the forty thieves. I enjoyed reading from each of their perspectives and absolutely loved the characters, Prince Mazen in particular. While I love reading about hot, cocky fictional men who are assassins and fear nothing, I found it refreshing to read from the perspective of a male character that constantly feels insecure and is basically very naive. Loulie and Aisha did most of the heavy lifting in this book, in terms of the action scenes but it was nice to see how much Mazen’s character changed by the end of the book. He slowly came out of his shell and grew more comfortable with himself.

I loved every part of this book, especially the plot which grew more interesting with every chapter. I probably would’ve binged this in a day if it weren’t for my reading slump. The constant action and fighting along with the really cool plot twists kept me hooked until the very end. This series is perfect for fans of the Daevabad trilogy.

All in all, I can’t wait to read the sequel, which is going to be a long wait. So much for my sanity.

An intriguing novel that combines the legend of the forty thieves, Aladdin, and a storyteller who charmed a king with a new twist. Jinn are considered evil and are hunted. Some people are treasure hunters, selling items with magic to others, some are killers, but each one has their secrets. Loulie travels with Qadir, her jinn companion that save her life years ago. Loulie cannot image her life without him. Mazin is the youngest child of the sultan, who is kept under guard but wants to see the world and enjoys storytelling, but is a coward. A chance encounter forces Loulie into a no choice situation that has them searching for a lamp along with a thief who has been given a mission beyond the treasure hunt. Keeping secrets, all four of them do. As they encounter jinn, they discover the stories told are not all quite what they were believed to be and there is more to it than meets the eye. Another though is pulling the strings, for this individual has had plans in motion for years. Betrayal and secrets affect them all, but can they overcome them in time, for the mission is a dangerous one and they all will need there wits about them to survive.
I received this novel from net galley and the publisher as an ARC. Thank you! All thoughts and opinions are my own.

The Stardust Thief is superb. It is the most epic of epic fantasy. And it deserves every ounce of its fervent hype. I think Abdullah is a great author, she was able to keep me thoroughly immersed with settings and by creating well-realized characters with spectacular developments. I genuinely don't have words to convey how absolutely immense it is. The multiple POVs were particularly interesting and I loved all the characters.
If you like any sort of fantasy, you need this book it. I'm already itching for the next book!

Special thanks to NetGalley and Orbit Books for sharing this digital reviewer copy with me in exchange my honest opinions

I really wanted to like this one but I couldn't get through it. The writing was a bit clunky and the characters didn't have much development or believability. I'm so sad, I really wanted a book like Daevabad or A Master of Djinn

Full review to be posted closer to publication date! Thank you to Netgalley and Orbit Books for providing me with an e-ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review

As a consummate storyteller, as soon as I saw the synopsis for The Stardust Thief, I knew it was going to be the book for me. And boy did it not disappoint! I loved the plot and the character dynamics of this book, and I can’t wait to see what happens next.

DNF. I was hoping for really beautiful prose, but instead the writing is surprisingly plain. It also reads more like YA than Adult Fantasy to me; the characters definitely felt more like teenagers than adults, and everything seemed very simplistic, from the worldbuilding to the plot to the writing.

Not a *bad* book, but not what I was expecting and definitely not for me.

Full review closer to publication date!

I'd like to thank the publisher, Orbit and Netgalley for providing me with a copy in exchange for an honest review.

This was one of my highly anticipated releases and it exceeded my expectations!! Full review will be up on pop culturalist closer to release date. If given the opportunity I would LOVE to interview Chelsea Abdullah about this. This is an Arab inspired Adult fantasy and I thoroughly enjoyed reading this!!

This was superb. Absolute perfection. Every character, every detail is so well written. I wanted this to end but I also wanted it to never end. I cannot wait for the next book.

The Stardust Thief is the first novel in a trilogy that is sure to make a lot of readers’ best books of 2022. It’s rife with interesting characters, deep lore, and stories of magic and jinn sprinkled throughout creating a world that feels lived in and used.

I would recommend The Stardust Thief to fans of Chakraborty’s The Daevabad Trilogy. Both have similar settings and well developed characters, however The Stardust Thief is slightly more magical with less politics.

The Stardust Thief is an Arab fantasy told from three perspectives: Loulie, a criminal merchant, Aisha, a member of the king’s thieves, and Mazen, the king’s son. Each perspective offers a different look at the world and its rules. Loulie was easily my favourite character followed by Mazen then Aisha. Though Loulie annoyed me at times, she felt real and wasn’t infallible despite being the main character. This created an air of unpredictability throughout the novel.

There were so many twists and turns throughout the novel that I never saw coming. The end of the novel is exciting as the truth is revealed leaving the characters uncertain of their future. The Stardust Thief also ends on a fairly significant cliff hanger with new information that was fairly obvious by the end if you were paying attention.

Overall, The Stardust Thief is an excellent introduction to The Sandsea Trilogy rife with interesting characters and intricate world building made real with in-world stories and jinn magic.

This is one of my top reads of 2022. A story about stories: the ones we tell each other, the ones we tell ourselves, the ones we accept, the ones we need to question. I expected a fun fantasy romp and I got that, but I was also punched in the face with all these FEELINGS.

Loulie is a compelling main character. The tragedies that she has overcome, her snark, her feral recklessness, her golden heart. Qadir is my favorite. He's my husband. All his secrets and lies, all his courage and protectiveness, all his raw power and the way even his lizard form can give Loulie The Face.

I love Mazen and Aisha. I love the twists and turns. I love the compelling villains. Above all, I love the themes of found family, of who we are and who we want to be, and the sendup to oral storytelling that pervades every word. Chelsea Abdullah is definitely an author to watch.