This was an incredibly fun and adventurous read! I adore a nice pirate tale and this one hit the mark for me. I really enjoyed the MC being older and more mature (mostly mature lol). I also appreciated how it wrapped up nicely at the end, although I would continue on in the series if more are released. The writing style was easily consumed and well-paced. The cover is gorgeous and eye-catching as well. I have really enjoyed everything I've read from Chakraborty so far and reccomend this book to anyone who enjoys pirate/heist vibes.

Thank you so much for the ARC.

This book hooked me from page one. The storytelling style is one that I think will be perfect on audio - so if you're an audio reader, I'd recommend that.


Pros:

The Accessibility: Even though this story has fantastical elements, it is super easy to read. It has an addictive quality where it is easy to get sucked into the storytelling.

The Characters: I really like how this story has characters that are more funny. I love the Daevabad Trilogy (also by S.A. Chakraborty), but that definitely feels serious. This was funny, and I loved it.


Cons:

The Intrigue of Book 2: I will be reading book two because I love Chakraborty's writing. However, I can see how some readers will be satisfied with just this one installment. It wraps up nicely, which I personally do not love for the first book in a series. I prefer open questions (and perhaps a dreaded cliffhanger). This incentivizes me to pick up the next book without waiting years.

The Length/Pacing: Parts of this book felt a little fast. Others felt a bit slow. The writing and humor kept me going, but I do think that there are parts of this novel which hit a slump.

Overall, I would highly recommend this book to anyone interested in morally gray characters, pirates, and heists!

After loving Chakraborty's debut Daevabad trilogy, I have been eagerly awaiting the release Amina al-Sirafi. Overall, it did not disappoint. Chakraborty is as skilled at writing historical fiction as fantasy, and she is at her best when she pauses to linger on the details: unpacking her characters' intricate loyalties, dropping nautical factoids, or seamlessly integrating the customs, prayers, greetings, and history of the ancient Islamic world. I felt completely immersed in this setting and quickly came to love Captain Amina and her crew.

The introduction of a certain character at about the halfway point was, for me, one of the book's only stumbles. This character is not supposed to be likable -- in fact, he has a mysterious, villainous backstory that readers slowly learn details of as the adventure unfolds. My issue was: his interactions with Amina felt off, and made her character read a little too "YA." This wouldn't usually bother me too much, except that one of the major themes of the book is Amina's "older" age: unlike a lot of fantasy protagonists, she is over 40 and a mother. In fact, most of the cast is middle aged. For the most part, this is handled well and makes for an interesting dynamic, as each character struggles to balance what they want from their lives with their family obligations. There were times, however, when I had to forcibly remind myself that Amina was a fully-grown adult as she endlessly bickered with this completely reprehensible character. All of her interactions with him felt out-of-character and immature, and made me wonder where the rational, wise Amina of the early chapters went.

Regardless, I loved the adventure and "heist" elements of the plot. I loved the crew. I thought the framing device - Amina telling her story aloud to a scribe named Jamal - was executed perfectly. And finally, I appreciate that this book can be read as a standalone fantasy story. Though it teases sequel novels to follow, it still ends on a satisfying note.

I love Chakraborty's writing. It's always so thought-through and funny. I also adore the addition of a (not) demon himbo. We need more of them in all of literature!!! And of course the throwback to COB was perfect, and left breadcrumbs for more crossovers to come.

I am not going to lie, I missed the political intrigue that was integral to the COB books, but that does not stop this novel from being a very fun romp!

Lady pirates! Magic! Getting the team back together for one last mission! This has all the ingredients you could ask for for an epic series start plus more. Amina as a middle aged lady pirate that feels too old for this sh*t is such a badass and I love her. I also adore Dalila, Mistress of Potions, who could kill you from 200 miles away 3 days after you saw her last. And dare I say it, but Raksh wormed his way into my heart despite how chaotic he is. AND! We got to see our favorite peri from the Daevabad trilogy!
This book was so great, not just for the plot and the characters, but for the homage to strong women who raise strong women and make sure they create spaces in the world for other strong women.
I’m excited to see the next adventures of Amina and her crew!

4.5 stars

Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing a requested copy for review. All opinions are my own.

I will not be giving a full review of this book, because Harper Collins has still not met the demands of the strike.

That being said: please support Arab and/or Muslim authors (I know this author is a Muslim convert). These stories deserve love and attention, as do many others that are suffering due the current situation.

This book is great--please Harper Collins, please give your workers what they need and deserve.

Absolute perfection… I don’t have words to describe how amazing this book was!

I saw this ARC available for request on NetGalley and was so thrilled to get it!

Genre: Fantasy
Pace: Medium
Summary: Amina Al-Sirafi is a mother, a daughter oh and a bad ass pirate! She just wants to retire with her family in their secluded family home. She wishes to remain hidden after quite the scandalous career as a notorious pirate. Although she has hidden her identity she is found by a wealthy woman in desperate need of Amina’s particular skill set. A young woman has gone missing and she needs Amina to find her and bring her home. She’s offered a sum of money and security that will ensure that her whole family and generations after, will never have to worry about money again. Once she sets out to find the young girl it’s apparent that there is much more at stake.

I heard this book compared to Oceans 11 meets swashbuckling pirate adventures. That is not too far off! I am not usually drawn to “sea tales” or ‘pirate” stories. Not a fan of Jack Sparrow (don’t cancel me), so I wasn’t sure if I wanted to dive into this. So glad I did, what an amazing story and what incredible writing once again by Shannon Chakraborty! She is a new must buy author for me! I am obsessed… I loved the magic and lore of this unique world and setting. Amina is an older female lead that is a power house. The diversity of characters and the melting pot of this world is really unique to see in story telling. Loved that so much. I was really surprised at how much I loved the way she was portrayed as a mother and a bad ass pirate. That deep down her desire was to provide security for her family, mainly her daughter. Such a fun read, super story and worth the ride!

#theadventuresofAminaalsirafi #netgalley #shannonckraborty #bookreview

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

This book started off a little slow, but once our main character got back on her boat and got the gang back together, it really picked up. First and foremost, I think it is important to point out that the main character is not only a badass female Muslim pirate, she is a badass female Muslim pirate over 40, which is amazing. I am truly looking forward to following more of her and her crew's adventures.

Speaking of her crew- the characters in this book are all well drawn out and characterized. Their relationships to each other all feel authentic and not forced. The found family aspect of this book is definitely one of the things that I loved most here. Also, big shout out to the lovable idiot of a ship cat, Payasam, probably the best character out of a group of really great characters.

I would definitely recommend this book to anyone who loves pirates, heists, women being badasses, and/or the excellent HBO show Our Flag Means Death.

This novel is by a brilliant author, but I found the pacing of the plot and action to be slow. I enjoyed the characters but I wasn't as convinced that the plot and story could keep the attention of most readers.

A retired female pirate, one of the most renowned in the Islamic world, is lured out of retirement with promises of untold wealth. She doesn’t own her own home, her family struggles to stay afloat, and the lure of providing an education for her daughter and life of relative comfort for her family is too tempting to ignore. She sets off on a quest at the behest of a noblewoman, experiences working mom guilt the entire time, and outpaces men in a space designed only for them. Is this a tribute to millennials and working moms everywhere??

Okay, but in all seriousness, Amina is one of the most relatable MCs I have ever met. She is an absolute badass - she can lead, she can fight, she’s cunning, strong, wise, and most of all, she’s loyal. She doesn’t let anyone or anything stop her from achieving her goals, but has the wits to know when to seek out help. Written as a first-person accounting of her many exploits to her biographer, Amina takes the reader on an epic, and often humorous, journey through the medieval world of the Indian Ocean. The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi is an homage to Islam, womanhood/motherhood, and the wisdom that comes with age and experience. You won’t want to miss this high-stakes fantasy quest!

Thank you to NetGalley and Harper Voyager for the e-arc in exchange for an honest review.

Setup: A retired pirate captain who only wants to stay home with her daughter gets pulled back into adventure, and we learn all about the strange magics that she encountered before and new wonders and terrors on the current quest.

I liked this book but didn't *love* it- perhaps my life stage is closer to Nahri's (from The City of Brass) than Amina's, so I connected with this one less. 3.5-4 stars but Goodreads doesn't do fractions. I definitely liked it enough to keep an eye for the next book; Chakraborty has earned my goodwill with her reliably enjoyable writing.

A fantastic swashbuckling ride! Adventure, humor, and twists at every turn; you won’t want to miss this first installment in this new trilogy.

https://fanfiaddict.com/review-the-adventures-of-amina-al-sirafi-by-s-a-chakraborty/

Tl;dr Snapshot Review

A fascinating book that reads like a story straight out of 1001 Nights. It’s rich in world, excellent in characters and satisfied my fancy for swashbuckling sea pirate adventure. The Legend and the woman behind it, captain us into a tale of mystery and adventure filled with evil magic, sea monsters and mythical beings!

Full review:

Those who have read the authors earlier works (The Daevabad Trilogy) would know what to expect and won’t be disappointed. From the get go, Chakraborty starts weaving a deft tale rich in world building and character development.

We start off with getting to know a retired Amina living with her daughter, hiding from her infamous past and hoping for a peaceful future. But as we read from the synopsis, fate has different plans. She is approached by the mother of a shipmate of hers who offers a heady mix of rewards and threats melded into an offer Amina can’t refuse. Once she gets set, she immediately realizes that she has been misled and things are far more serious that she was let know. The kidnapping doesn’t look like one, her supposed enemy takes on a new and far more frightening dimension and the stakes are far far larger and deadlier than her worst expectations. But with the threats hanging over her, she’s forced to carry on.

The story then switches back and forth between the current quest and key events prior to her retirement. As she gets her crew back, more layers of history are revealed and we see both sides of Amina, the notorious pirate who wanted to be a legend and the mother who just wants to be back her family now.

.

After reading City of Brass, I became a firm believer that S.A. Chakraborty writes some of the best prose in the book world and this book just reinforced that. They way she weaves a rich tapestry of words, so rich in detail is absolutely phenomenal. The depth of detail brings to life the culture from the landscape in Arabia to the seascape life at the ports of Aden (Yemen) with a clarity that genuinely makes you feel you are right there journeying with Amina. the prose is predominantly told from the perspective of Amina, though she breaks the flow now and then to remind us that part of it is a narration by her to her chronicles/historian. Not just the worldbuilding, but the action of the characters, their speech, their mannerisms etc are perfectly in synch (at least to my own ignorant self) to fit that period lifestyle.

Amina is a superbly written multifaceted character. A pirate that other pirates fear to cross, a myth where stories and reality have lost their definitions, and now a mother living life of piety and motherhood in retirement and one where her suppressed past self and wages a war with current self to get back to good ol’ glory days! The way she balances her inner desires to her reality, makes for one captain, I’d be happy to sail with! Not just her, but each of the supporting cast are etched well and have their own role to play.

On the flipside, the novel is not without it’s faults (for lack of better word), but these may be more because of my personal bias than anything the author wrote. For one, fascinating though the worldbuilding has been, many a time I felt it took priority over the actual plot progress making it a unevenly paced read. Paragraphs and sometimes pages pass in providing details before the characters actually progress along the story. I did end up with a feeling that I’d have been OK if she had traded a bit less worldbuilding, so I could get a more crisper read. Secondly, the plot is fairly predictable and events just happen to progress the plot rather than a organic progression which felt a bit forced.

Minor niggles aside, this was a rich and fascinating read and one I believe would add to her previous successes with Daevabad Trilogy.

Recommended!

Thanks to Netgalley's extremely quick response time! ARC received in exchange for an honest review. There may be spoilers ahead, so proceed with caution!.

THE ADVENTURES OF AMINA AL-SIRAFI is a high-seas adventure following the exploits of the notorious pirate Amina al-Sirafi as she's dragged out of retirement to settle a threat against her family. This did not read like a pirate book, but that didn't bother me as much as I thought it might (given the way this book was advertised). Instead, this reads like a mashup of a heist book, adventure novel (à la TREASURE ISLAND), demon-hunting quest, break-up story, and historical account all in one.

THE CONS (of which there are few, but they were early enough in the book to almost turn me away from reading): This book was trying to be too many things at one time. For the first 90-120 pages, I was contemplating putting it down pretty frequently. Though having Amina's background was necessary to understand her motivations, I thought the plot dragged on far too long, from her first encounter with Salima--who sets in motion the course of events of this book--to getting the crew back together to finally getting a lead on the whereabouts of their quarry. This book is long, so 100 pages of not-so-good material isn't the end of the world (it clocked in at 682 pages on my e-reader), but it is still a long time to go without being fully immersed in the story.

So. What saved it?

I felt like my entire outlook of the book shifted during one specific scene, and I went from being extremely so-so to extremely excited to see what was in store for us. (I will leave it at silver coins, in an effort to keep at least a little mystery to this book). In no time at all, the story jumped into action and kept me turning page after page until the very end. I was completely drawn in to Amina's journey, her crew, her (supposed-to-be-dead) husband, and the mythology surrounding the artifact at the center of so much bloodshed. In fact, I had such a good time reading the rest of the book that I forgave it for anything I'd disliked about it before, and that's ... pretty rare for me, haha.

I haven't read any of S.A. Chakraborty's previous works, and I'm not sure I will (because if they're this long, and they're a trilogy, when will I find the time???), but I immensely enjoyed myself throughout (the majority of) this book.

And since I'm making a conscious effort to evaluate books less on the technical or nitty-gritty pet peeves they irk in me this year and more on my enjoyment overall, this gets a full 5 stars from me! The first of 2023! You go, Amina al-Sirafi!

As an end note, I also loved the commentary on how much of Amina's notoriety comes from the simple fact that she's a woman stepping out of the traditional role in the society that she lives in, and though I found the in-between chapters where people tell their accounts of her or her compatriots largely unnecessary, I think they paint a fun picture of the way her legend spread versus the woman we actually meet and follow in the present day of the story. And! Raksh's annoyance at being considered a demon when he is much older than the concept, and his true origins having been lost to time so people box him in when he's a lot larger and mythical than even that. Things I'm hoping continue to come up in the sequel!

Notes from the Margins:

📝 I gambled. “I know how to dissolve the bind between us,” I lied in a rush. “But it is a complicated, delicate process. A spell of sorts, one that may be tricky to navigate.”
“How?” Raksh asked, growing breathless. “What is it?”
God guide me. “A divorce.”

📝 “Your obsession with me is embarrassing.”

DNFd @20%

The way that this book is written. Is making it the story feel all over the place and hard to focus on. Maybe I will continue this at a later date, but I'm really not enjoying it at the moment.

The notorious Nakhuda Amina al-Sirafi disappeared from society in stories as spectacular as her escapades on the sea. The truth is much simpler: she retired. But after a decade of watching her daughter grow, an old debt comes calling that lures Amina back into the life she had left behind.

Chakraborty has done it AGAIN! This book was un-put-downable (and so good, I need to make up words, apparently) and flew by. Though very different from the Daevabad trilogy, Chakraborty's strengths were all on full display - world-building, deep characters, and an extremely distinctive narrative voice. Chakraborty should write a master class in voice; Amina had the most mama-bear, salty, sarcastic voice and it was clear on every single page that this was HER story. I cannot recommend this book enough.

Content Warnings: language, violence, gore, references to sexual violence, references to pedophilia, references to genocide

I wanted to enjoy this one but I found the plot, story, and characterizations hard to follow and not really resonate the best for me at times.

There are so many things I loved about this one! In fantasy, middle aged women with children are rarely the mc. In fact I can't think of a single book with this representation. It was a breath of fresh air to get an mc who is experienced in life stepping back into her old life, but from an older wiser kind of outlook.

I really enjoyed this fun story that was full of adventure and humor.

I hadn’t read anything by this author before picking this book up. Although, I had heard great things about her writing. I do have her first series on my tbr, haha. The book, for the most part, was good and I can see why this author has a following.

The book is told from on point-of-view and it comes from Amina al-Sirafi. She is a retired pirate who now takes care of her child and mother. It’s such an interesting change of careers and I like that through the book we get her thoughts on both and can understand the pull of the adventure, but also wanting a good life for her child. Amina is one fierce lady and masks her concerns well! She is a fighter and will do anything to protect those she cares about.

There are quite a few other characters in this book that get a lot of page time. One being her crew. There are three major players to this and each one is brought back into the fold when a kidnapping takes place and they in a way are connected to the girl. Loyalty is a trait that they all have in common. The crew was fun to get to know, but I definitely thought Delila was hilarious with her antics when it comes to alchemy. The villain is also pretty present and he is the perfect guy to hate. There is also a special someone that has a fun relationship with Amina and I hope they continue to make a presence in the trilogy.

The plot is filled with adventures on land and sea, politics, backstabbing, and magic. I will say that it took me a bit to get into and there were some lulls in the story as well that kind of took me out of it. It was definitely much harder to put down once I got past the 50% mark and things started to move rather quickly. I also thought the plot would stretch across the trilogy but it wraps up by the end although she was give a task to complete and I am assuming that is what the other books will be about. Because of it wrapping up, the climatic ending didn’t feel so climatic for me.

My only other complaint is that the writing style was confusing because we are told in the beginning that she is being interviewed about her adventures and someone is writing them down so the dialogue is a bit different here which is fine, but it will jump to that sort of dialogue in the middle of chapters telling about the adventure but the tense and narration changes so suddenly that it can be hard to make sense of while reading. I don’t even know if that makes sense with how I explained it, haha.

Overall, this was a good read. I am curious how the sequel will be and I am sure I will check it out.

Rating: 3.5 stars

This first in a proposed series is a rollicking ride around the Indian Ocean with the middle-aged retired smuggler Amina al-Sirafi. She gave up her pirate life ten years before when she gave birth to her daughter, Marjana. She ekes out a living in an isolated ruin of a house in Oman. Then she is approached to rescue the kidnapped daughter of a former shipmate. She is offered a fabulous sum of money and Amina can't resist the lure of just one more adventure.

Filled with historical details drawn from accounts of medieval seafaring and the cultures of the people whose lands touch the Indian Ocean, this is more than a funny, exciting, fresh tale of sorcery, danger, and found family. It is also a fascinating glimpse into an area of the world that up until now rarely forms the basis of fantasy world-building. Chakraborty's Daevabad trilogy was a fabulous work that opened up a deep well of mostly unfamiliar folklore and legend for contemporary fantasy readers. Readers will be richly rewarded by this new set of characters and this enchanting new world. Highly recommend.