I was very excited but also nervous for this one - the author wrote one of my favourite series, the Daevabad trilogy so I wanted to love this one but I don’t usually love sea based books??

I should’ve have worried though, Chakraborty DELIVERED. Amina is a middle aged Muslim lady pirate with aching knees, a questionable past and a desperate desire to continue adventuring. I loved Amina and I really enjoyed the way the book was written - it’s Amina telling the story to a scribe who is writing the story we get.

We start with Amina hiding out with her daughter trying to love a semi normal life. However when a rich worried grandmother comes to get Amina’s help in recovering her granddaughter who has been taken by a Frankish sorcerer?? Well Amina can’t resist one last adventure and promptly goes to get her crew back together.

Amina was amazing but her crew were just as dynamic and fun. I love all the wild adventures they get up to - and as someone who doesn’t love pirate books that spend all the time at sea, I was very pleased to find a lot of these adventures happen at different ports and islands. I don’t want to say much about these adventures but suffice to say they were all entertaining and seeing Amina living her best pirate life was something I didn’t know I needed but I’m beyond happy I got.

I adored the time period and setting. Chakraborty has a way of bringing the world to life that I love. It was full of rich world building, historic atmosphere, pirate goodness, mythology and daring escapades. Also a cowardly self serving demon (not technically a demon?) estranged husband as a character? He was just such chaotic fun I couldn’t help but like having him in the story!

Alongside the Muslim representation - which I loved since we don’t often get positive religious representations in fantasy books - we also get positive gender affirming Rep!

Also there are references to the Daevabad trilogy is you’ve read that which was just so fun and hilarious to see Amina deal with the craziness of that.

Overall a great book (if a little slow in places) and I’m very much looking forward to the next.