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plinytheolder

plinytheolder@sfba.club

Joined 11 months, 1 week ago

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Shannon Chakraborty: The Adventures of Amina Al-Sirafi (2023, HarperCollins Publishers) 5 stars

Amina al-Sirafi should be content. After a storied and scandalous career as one of the …

Legendary Pirate Queen

5 stars

I was thoroughly charmed by this book — an adventure-filled, magical story of a pirate queen who became a legend. It took an era that I know nothing about — the seafaring cultures of the 12th century Indian Ocean, especially focused on Oman, Yemen, and Somalia, as filtered through the 1001 Nights, and gave it a contemporary twist by focusing on the glorious Amina al-Sarafi. She’s a Muslim former pirate who has retired to raise her daughter, but gets pulled into One Last Heist by being offered an eye-popping sum of money to go rescue the kidnapped child of one of her former crew. An early chapter in which she successfully defends two idiots who are looking for treasure from an angry sea demon sets the tone for later encounters with creatures more and more magical. Amina has a live-and-let-live attitude toward her queer crew members, which is refreshing. The …

Tansy Rayner Roberts: Gate Sinister (Paperback, 2023, Tansy Rayner Roberts) 5 stars

Cute gaslamp fantasy novella

5 stars

I liked one of Tansy Rayner Roberts other fantasy series, so I gave this — the first in a series — a go, and it was good! It’s a gaslamp fantasy novella — obviously inspired by Jane Austen and other regency romances, but in an alternate 1870s Britannia, a couple centuries after Queen Elizabeth won a war against the Queen of the Fairies.

There’s a second volume out now, and two more due out this year or next.