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The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi

A Novel

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The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi

Written by: Shannon Chakraborty
Narrated by: Lameece Issaq, Amin El Gamal
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Shannon Chakraborty, the bestselling author of The City of Brass, spins a new trilogy of magic and mayhem on the high seas in this tale of pirates and sorcerers, forbidden artifacts and ancient mysteries, in one woman’s determined quest to seize a final chance at glory—and write her own legend.

Amina al-Sirafi should be content. After a storied and scandalous career as one of the Indian Ocean’s most notorious pirates, she’s survived backstabbing rogues, vengeful merchant princes, several husbands, and one actual demon to retire peacefully with her family to a life of piety, motherhood, and absolutely nothing that hints of the supernatural.

But when she’s tracked down by the obscenely wealthy mother of a former crewman, she’s offered a job no bandit could refuse: retrieve her comrade’s kidnapped daughter for a kingly sum. The chance to have one last adventure with her crew, do right by an old friend, and win a fortune that will secure her family’s future forever? It seems like such an obvious choice that it must be God’s will.

Yet the deeper Amina dives, the more it becomes alarmingly clear there’s more to this job, and the girl’s disappearance, than she was led to believe. For there’s always risk in wanting to become a legend, to seize one last chance at glory, to savor just a bit more power…and the price might be your very soul.

Supplemental enhancement PDF accompanies the audiobook.

Action & Adventure Alternate History Epic Fantasy Fiction Genre Fiction Historical Science Fiction Women's Voices Adventure Pirate Magic Disappearance
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Exciting and funny. Thanks for writing this piece. I truly love this book. Worth reading again and again :)

Really really great read.

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I started reading the ebook but quickly realized that this would sound amazing on audio. I was correct. Shannon Chakaborty does an incredible job of weaving history into her fantasy. This is a must read for any fantasy lover.

An Adventure

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La narration et la facon dont l'hisoire est racontée nous fait sentir comme si nous etions avec Amina et son équipe pendant le récit.

C'est vraiment bien d'avoir une Héroïne adulte avec une facon franche de penser et qui met de l'avant ses expériences de vie bonnes et mauvaise.

Amina est très humaine et il est facile d'embarquer dans ses souliers et son aventure.

J'aime beaucoup l'univers dans lequel elle est, c'est amusant d'avoir quelques clins d'oeil à Deavabad.

J'ai adoré Amina Al-Sirafi

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I should have loved this, it had everything I usually like in a book: action, adventure, magic, a ragtag group of miscreant characters. But the narrator… NO. Her vocal performance was fantastic, but I swear every 3 words she would change from SUPER SUPER LOUD to *incredibly quiet* and honestly it annoyed me so badly. As soon as I would change the volume to tone it down, she would get quiet. Then I would get absolutely deafened when the next sentence would start and the first word was SO. LOUD.

Narrator ruined it for me :(

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Meh. This audiobook just wasn't for me. I can't put my finger on what it was that made me wholly indifferent to the characters and their stories. I guess it was maybe too... simple? The main character is interesting, I suppose, although she had a pretty invincible vibe about her, which detracted from any real sense of danger (at one point, she survives like two weeks adrift on a makeshift raft at sea, and then she makes landfall and carries on like it was no big deal). The author frequently goes out of her way to explicitly remind listeners of the protagonist's motivations, which was a little irritating. The first half of the book is a standard coming-out-of-retirement-and-getting-the-band-back-together story, and the secondary characters are just as one-dimensional and invincible as the main protagonist.

To sum it up, this kinda felt like I was listening to a novelized version of one of the later Pirates of the Caribbean movies: there's this ragtag group of pirates who get up to shenanigans and face down a series of faux-dangers that don't pose any real threat to them, and it all leads to a ho-hum climactic battle with some other greedy pirate seeking empowerment from some supernatural artifact. There was nothing especially compelling about any of it.

So yeah. Meh, indeed.

Meh

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