June was very much the month of me finally bingeing all of SA Chakraborty’s books. I have a separate full review up of the Daevabad trilogy, but here I will also review the other two Chakraborty books I read this month – the Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi and the Tapestry of Fate (and I’ll let you know a spoiler, to whet your appetite; as much as I loved the Daevabad trilogy, I think I might have loved Amina even more). All this to say, I discovered some new favourite books and a new auto-buy author this month.
As the title of this post implies though, I did read a few other things that weren’t written by Shannon Chakraborty. There’s another epic historical fantasy (can you tell I love a historical fantasy?), an epistolary litfic that BookTok is loving and a new thriller release from one of my most anticipated authors.
I’m sat in front of a window, with a rainy summer’s evening outside. Even so, the lake in front of our holiday cottage’s splendour cannot be dimmed no matter the weather. So let’s dive in to what I read in June.
- City of Brass by S.A. Chakraborty (The Daevabad Trilogy #1)
Epic fantasy / Historical
‘Greatness takes time, Banu Nahida. Often the mightiest things have the humblest beginnings.‘
My review: Nahri is a petty thief and pickpocket on the streets of 18th century Cairo, a city undergoing great change and tussles with different powers. When one of Nahri’s cons goes disastrously wrong and she summons an ancient and mightily powerful djinn to her side, she unknowingly sets in motion a series of events that will lead to her fleeing Cairo alongside the djinn pursued by magical creatures that Nahri thought were merely the stuff of legends. But the djinn Dara who seems to be her only ally is also keeping secrets – secrets that will emerge when they finally reach the unseen city of Daevabad and throw everything Nahri thought she knew about this new world into greater chaos. For Daevabad, the fabled City of Brass, is the centre of the magical realm and it too is being torn apart by warring factions.
Nahri soon finds herself embroiled in a court of ancient grudges, simmering tensions and tyrannical rulers as she discovers more about her own past and connection to the magical city. The quote above really encapsulates this entire series. The City of Brass is a very solid first book, an introduction into a world that we already know has the capacity to become so much bigger. The worldbuilding is a slow build, much of which we learn alongside Nahri so it never feels unmanageable or info-dumpy.
The story is also told in dual POV, with Nahri’s narrative counterpart being Prince Alizayd, the second son of the King. I think this balanced wonderfully. We see a different side to Daevabad through Ali’s eyes, particularly since he and Nahri have contrasting ideologies and politics. This also made their POVs so distinctive and I never forgot whose I was reading.
I rated this 4.5 stars and the only reason that it didn’t get a five star was just a pacing issue that might be personal preference. I found the section with Nahri and Dara travelling to Daevabad slightly boring and I know exactly why this is – I’m not a big Dara fan. He seems to be a rather divisive character in the Daevabad-universe; you either love him or you hate him. If I had to choose, I fear I’m in the hate camp. Instead I much preferred Ali – he’s sanctimonious and strait-laced – but his own struggle with his moral code and difficulty reconciling his father’s actions with his own belief system was far more interesting to me than Dara’s inner conflict.
I thought the ending wrapped up really nicely (obviously it leaves a LOT of unanswered questions that made me so eager to start book two) but it had a pretty satisfying conclusion regardless of them. I wasn’t a huge fan of the romance between Nahri and Dara, but truly it is such a small component of the story that it didn’t overly bother me.
- The Kingdom of Copper by S.A. Chakraborty (The Daevabad Trilogy #2)
Epic fantasy / Historical
‘Because a lost little girl from Cairo thought she was living in some sort of fairy tale. And because for all her supposed cleverness, she couldn’t see that the dashing hero who saved her was its monster.’
My review: After the devastating effects of the City of Brass, Nahri has been left reeling by the betrayal of the one person in Daevabad she thought she could trust. In the five years since, she has set about rebuilding and making a place for herself in Daevabad. Embracing her role as the Banu Nahida, the palace’s healer, and marrying a powerful man, Nahri determines she will never again be as helpless as she once was.
Prince Alizayd has been exiled by his father, but when a series of contrived circumstances draw him back to Daevabad, he must defy his king’s orders. All the while, a threat is brewing that may demolish the fragile peace Nahri has painstakingly built, one both supernatural and very human.
The Kingdom of Copper takes all the worldbuilding and setup we got in the City of Brass and expands it tenfold. We get a third POV in this book, and similarly to the first book, each of the three narrative characters are so different. They have different politics, so a lot of the time, they are actively plotting against one another. There are pieces of information that one character might have but another doesn’t. As the reader, it was like having a completed jigsaw puzzle and watching the three of them struggle to solve it. I also felt like the political intrigue kicked up a gear – it’s what the majority of this book is comprised of, which might be boring to some readers who prefer more action, but I personally loved the slow burn of the plot.
Additionally, I really feel like the five year time-jump was the right decision to make. Each of the characters, even the side characters, felt naturally a lot more mature. They were in different circumstances and stations – for instance, Nahri is a valued healer and wife to the future King so she is in much more of a position of power in this book.
The research that Chakraborty puts into this story is insane – something that was true of the City of Brass but is doubly true of the rest of the series. I adore a historical setting, especially when it combines fantastical elements built off local folklore and legends as this is, and when so much work is put into making every single detail slot into the story perfectly, it elevates the story exponentially. No second-book syndrome around here! Authors, take notes. This is how you write a sequel.
- The Empire of Gold by S.A. Chakraborty (The Daevabad Trilogy #3)
Epic fantasy / Historical
‘I am who I am because of that human world. It wasn’t the Banu Nahida who’d driven the peris to their knees, it was the con artist of Cairo, and Nahri wouldn’t cast her away.‘
My review: Daevabad has fallen, and after a bloody battle that saw thousands dead, the city has been stripped of all magic. The streets are in turmoil with the unprecedented loss of magic and the despotic behaviour of their new ruler. The worst demons of the magical world have been let loose and corrupted blood magic threatens its future.
Nahri and Ali have escaped unscathed and have secreted themselves away in Cairo. But a decision weighs on them; to turn their backs on the city they’ve both sacrificed so much in vain to save, or to try one last time.
I loved being back in Cairo – it felt cyclical and perfect as Nahri’s story drew to a close. I also loved seeing some different landscapes and cultures of the djinn outside of Daevabad, such as Ta Ntry. The scope of the story expanded and the stakes heightened, and overall it was a pretty spectacular finish to a masterfully woven series.
We have a wide cast of characters but none of them feel neglected or overlooked. They’re all so expertly developed and have arcs (some heroic and some villainous). I also loved how Chakraborty wrote her villains, with motivations that felt so realistic. Partly fuelled by vengeance and partly by true belief that what they’re doing is right, for the greater good of Daevabad.
There’s an endorsement from Laini Taylor on the cover that reads ‘Dizzyingly magical, and still utterly believable,’ and I agree with this. For all that fantasy books are just that – fantasy – they can still feel realistic to our world in their themes and conversations. The endlessly warring factions and how the djinn society is splintered – not just into two opposing sides, but into five or six who all believe differently – felt very true to how politics does divide people.
As I was saying at the start of my reviews, where the characters start the story versus where they end up is so vastly different that it really feels like you’ve been on the journey with them. The threads Chakraborty has woven together throughout the three books come together so seamlessly and it felt like the revelations and twists just kept coming.
All this to say, I think this is maybe one of the fantasy books I’ve read that comes to the closest to perfection. The pacing throughout the series – the balance of action and politicking, developing characters and building relationships – was struck perfectly to my liking. Even for a book of 800 pages, it felt like not a word was wasted, no scene extraneous.
- The Red Winter by Cameron Sullivan
Historical fantasy / Horror
‘”I am not who you think I am, I wanted to say. ‘I am a witch. I am a monster, a murderer. I am an abomination older than the House of Avenel, older than France.”‘
My review: Twenty years ago, Sebastian Grave slew the legendary Beast of Gevaudan, a monster that terrorised rural France, slaughtering entire villages and leaving destruction in its wake. But, unlike the rest of the men chasing the Beast, Sebastian is no ordinary hunter. He too is an immortal, and has spent centuries hunting similar creatures of havoc, with the help of the monster in his own mind, Sarmodel. And although Sebastian was successful in slaying the monster, the secret of his own identity was unveiled to a neighbouring lord, Antoine.
Now the year is 1758 and Sebastian is called back to Gevaudan with grave news. The Beast has returned, and the one person who knows Sebastian’s true self has summoned him. What awaits him there fills him with dread; a grotesque monster, an estranged lover and divine forces conspiring against him.
As befits a werewolf tale set 1750s rural France, the tone of the Red Winter is bleak and dark. I thought Sullivan did a great job of crafting this atmosphere and it really was a strong point of the book. The rest of the worldbuilding, magical and otherwise – the demons, archangels, succubi, priests and noblemen – all felt like they meshed really well with the world Sullivan created.
One of my main issues with this book was the representation of its female characters. The woman with the biggest part is Livia, a succubi, the majority of whose on-page time is spent lusting and thirsting for men (and then killing them). It felt like a rather caricatured portrayal and if Sullivan could devote so much time to exploring Sebastian’s own demonic heritage and yet still make him a fully-formed character, I didn’t see why he couldn’t extend the same to Livia’s character. Her part in the story seemed very extraneous too, and I wasn’t entirely sure of the point. The other female characters were almost too negligible to mention – there was a witchy crone who ran an apothecary and the pretty lover of a young man.
The timeline jumped around quite often, between the original hunt and then the return of the Beast twenty years later, but we also frequently flash back to (weirdly) Joan of Arc? There is a connection made in the story, but it’s tenuous and not revealed until later, so it all felt very random and those were definitely my least favourite chapters to read.
I wasn’t entirely convinced by the romance either – which was especially disappointing since this really is the central plot of the novel, Beasts and demons aside. It felt more lustful than anything, and this never really changed, after they had spent months in the forests around Gevaudan together and even after twenty years had passed of Sebastian supposedly pining for Antoine.
In conclusion, my high expectations for this one were well and truly dashed. The premise and setting were interested – I do love a historical setting and knew nothing about the Beast of Gevaudan legend beforehand – but the rest of it fell flat and even enraged me at some points (I definitely had a few rants to friends about this book, but I doubt the emotions the author meant to provoke were frustration and disappointment). The ending was left deliberately open for sequels but I will not be reading.
- The Correspondent by Virginia Evans
Epistolary / Contemporary fiction
‘“Imagine, the letters one has sent out into the world, the letters received back in turn, are like the pieces of a magnificent puzzle, or, a better metaphor, if dated, the links of a long chain, and even if those links are never put back together, which they will certainly never be, even if they remain for the rest of time dispersed across the earth like the fragile blown seeds of a dying dandelion, isn’t there something wonderful in that, to think that a story of one’s life is preserved in some way, that this very letter may one day mean something, even if it is a very small thing, to someone?”‘
My review: The Correspondent is an entirely epistolary novel consisting of letters written and received by Sybil van Antwerp, an aging old lady who has always stuck staunchly by her habit of writing letters to those in her life. Through her correspondence, we watch as she reflects on different periods of her life, from her illustrious career as a lawyer’s clerk to the devastating loss of a child.
I’m a fan of epistolary novels, but one thing I was initially nervous of was that this would feel gimmicky or a bit contrived in an effort to distinguish itself in a saturated market. But it felt really natural, that this was the way the story was meant to be told, so these fears were instantly assuaged.
Sybil herself is stubborn and often unlikeable, but entirely realistic. From reading others reviews, she’s also an incredibly divisive character. For me, I didn’t need to like her necessarily to still enjoy the book. The author’s intention is for the reader to accept her as she is and maybe see bits and pieces of people in our own life in Sybil and in the other correspondents. I, alongside many other reviewers, would describe this book as intensely human; ugly, painful and raw as it is.
I highly recommend the audiobook, which is how I listened. The narrator does a superb job of capturing Sybil and there are other actors reading each of the other letter-writers too, which was so immersive and each of them do a great performance. (Also, I love Theodore Lubeck. If Theodore Lubeck has no fans, I am dead).
As to whether it’s deserving of the amount of hype it has received… I’m not convinced. I enjoyed it, to be sure, but I remain skeptical if it’s the next great literary fiction book of the moment. There were definitely moments that felt too cliche, but they were sparse and outweighed by what I felt were the more realistic and raw letters.
- River of Silver by S.A. Chakraborty (The Daevabad Trilogy #3.5)
Short stories / Fantasy
‘Half of your roots missing. Maybe that just means you’re free to write your own story.’
My review: I’ll attempt to keep this one short, since this review is already so long. The River of Silver is a collection of short stories – scenes that Chakraborty had to extract from the original drafts, extra epilogues and additional backstory that she wrote to inform the story.
I really enjoyed this short addition to the Daevabad trilogy – although as I was reading the original three books, I didn’t have the impression that needed any more character development, that anything was missing, these were pleasant extras. Sometimes I’m a bit wary that authors use these novellas or short stories to make up for things glossed over in the original book, but this definitely wasn’t the case here. It was supplemental material – fun and informative to read the backstories of some of the more niche side characters – but definitely not required reading.
I appreciated that it offered me the chance to get a bit of closure from the end of Empire of Gold. I had been so invested in this world for weeks and suddenly it was over? So it was nice to jump straight into this, and have my soul healed from some of the cuter stories (we do not get a lot of cute in these books, so this rare occasion was to be savoured).
- Tell Your Friends by Lauren Wilson
Young adult / Thriller
‘It should have been her…’
My review: For Crystal, university is her chance to get out from under the thumb of her controlling parents and begin living a life off camera. When she meets Alyssa, another student with a suspiciously murky past and a habit of alienating everyone she grows close to, the two form a friendship and Crystal recruits Alyssa’s help in exposing the truth behind her family’s picture-perfect online persona.
Unbeknownst to Crystal, Alyssa is an avid watcher of At Home with the Shaws, and vows to thwart her expose at every turn. But as Crystal gets closer to unearthing the lies hidden in her past, it could bring revelations that will change her life forever – and Alyssa will go to any lengths to make sure the truth never gets out…
Tell Your Friends has a boatload of current social commentary around the dark side of family vlogging and kid influencing, while retaining the compulsive and addictive pace typical of thrillers. Seriously, I’d recommend picking this up when you have a good couple of hours free, because once you start, you’re not going to want to stop! The themes dissected hit far too close to home – the sad reality of a childhood lived in front of cameras and put on display for public consumption, and I think it’s one that a lot of us recognise from our FYPs or news articles.
I also loved how Wilson put female friendship at the forefront of the story. I thought it was really interesting how Wilson explored the parasocial relationship that Alyssa developed and detrimental it was to her own life – from her family to the furthering of her own insecurities. As for Crystal, her internal battle between exposing her family and potentially perpetuating the cycle of abuse felt like a realistic portrayal of a grown-up kidfluencer. The guilt, anger and resentment she oscillates between felt true to life.
Overall, a stunning follow-up to Wilson’s debut last year The Goldens. If you loved Yesteryear or Julie Chan is Dead and their somewhat satirical, razor-sharp commentary on influencing, I think you’d similarly love Tell Your Friends. Tell Your Friends is out today!
- Spells for Forgetting by Adrienne Young
Magical realism / Mystery / Romance
“There were tales that only the island knew. Ones that had never been told. I knew, because I was one of them.”
My review: Emery Blackwood’s life has been shaped by a disastrous event that happened over a decade ago – an event which saw her best friend dead and the boy she’d fallen in love with, August Salt, accused of murdering her. Not long after, August fled the small island on which they lived, leaving Emery to deal with the fallout. Now, Emery is running her family’s teashop on Saoirse Island, a misty, remote outcropping off the shore of the Washington state coast, but her quiet life is thrown into turmoil when August returns to Saoirse.
I read this for a summerween-ish, spooky, small town / unsolved murder vibe and it very much delivered. If you’re looking for something similar, you cannot go wrong with this one! I don’t typically enjoy ‘cosy’ fantasy – and I definitely wouldn’t class this as ‘cosy’ – it did have that comforting feel, and enough plot and stakes to keep the book moving forward and my interest!
I also enjoyed the split timeline – I do love an unsolved mystery that is unearthed years and years later. The magical realism element is very slight, as it definitely leans more into the mystery than the magic. I’m such a fan of Adrienne Young’s writing – it’s quite simplistic but also very raw and emotional. Overall, I think this one was super enjoyable and definitely whetted a summerween itch in me, but I also didn’t find it memorable or particularly impactful. A fun, spooky read but not one that I suspect will stay with me.
If you’re a fan of Gilmore Girls, but would’ve preferred it if it were a bit spookier and possibly had an unsolved murder at its heart, this is the book for you. I really enjoyed Fallen City and I will definitely be reading the Unmaking of June Farrow and Fable (after Amina, I definitely need another pirate novel) as soon as possible.
- The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi by Shannon Chakraborty (Amina al-Sirafi #1)
Epic fantasy / Swashbuckling adventure
“For this scribe has read a great many of these accounts and taken away another lesson: that to be a woman is to have your story misremembered. Discarded. Twisted.”
My review: When a reformed pirate is brought out of retirement by an offer too good to refuse, she soon realises the quest she’s reluctantly agreed to may prove far more than she bargained for. Amina al-Sirafi is torn between her peaceful (if solitary) life with her daughter and reminiscence about her days of piracy. But when an elderly widow comes to her isolated house and relates to Amina the story of her granddaughter’s abduction, both the personal note of the tragic tale and the call of the sea is too much to resist. And when it becomes apparent that the Lady Salima may not have been telling the entire truth, it is too late for Amina to back out. So she gathers her old crew, and together they set off for one last hurrah in pursuit of unimaginable riches and a mystical object.
I loved that our female protagonist was older than we typically see in fantasy.books, as well as being a mother. I think it added so much depth to her character and gave motivation to all her actions. All the stakes were heightened by the fact that her daughter is entirely dependent on her. She was more battle-worn than your typical fresh-faced 18-year-old, and I found that her experience gave a credence and gravitas to her narration. She also had some great tales – seriously, I could read for thousands of pages about Amina, Tinbu, Majed and Dalila’s adventures in their heyday. It’s something I really want to see more of in fantasy (also, it gave me a bit of a giggle every time Amina would complaint about her joints creaking or her back hurting. Real.)
I used the phrase swashbuckling adventure to describe this and I think it encapsulates it perfectly. This book is swashbuckling in every sense of the word; daring, adventurous, full of flamboyant characters and loveable rogues. Speaking of loveable rogues, the side characters compliment Amina perfectly, her loyal first mate, her cantankerous navigator and (my personal favourite) her deadly Mistress of Poisons. Oh and I can’t forget her demon husband. Additionally, it’s narrated by Amina herself, in a sort of verbal recounting of her adventures, so her personality really shines through the pages.
It’s set in the same world as the Daevabad trilogy – which you definitely don’t have to read in order to understand and enjoy this one, but of course, I’d recommend it to you anyway because it’s fantastic. But where Daevabad was chock-full of political intrigue and world-altering stakes, Amina doesn’t take itself as seriously. I say that in italics, because there are definitely world-altering stakes in this too, but it just feels so fun that you can’t help but enjoy every minute of it, even the perilous. As with Daevabad, the amount of research put into this book truly shines through. It drew on folklore and real-life accounts of sailors in the Indian Ocean circa 1100, such as Sinbad the Sailor.
There’s so much worldbuilding and such a scope to the story, and yet it never felt in the least bit overwhelming because of how much Chakraborty focuses on the humans. This is such an intensely human story, more so than Daevabad, and I think that’s potentially why I loved it even more. It has found family that’s built off decades of companionship (those who pillage together, stay together?) and a mother that will go to any lengths to keep her daughter safe. I just loved every minute of it.
- The Tapestry of Fate by Shannon Chakraborty (Amina al-Sirafi #2)
Epic fantasy / Swashbuckling adventure
“For there are indeed a great many capable, cunning women that the world would prefer to remember as witches.”
My review: Reformed pirate Amina al-Sirafi has been tasked with hunting down five magical objects for the formidable peri council. After the events of the first book, she’s one down, four to go. After only a brief reprieve to spend time with her daughter, Amina has been summoned back to work and mandated to find a divine spindle. Secreted on an island, the waters which surround it famed for their shipwrecks, retrieving the spindle is a daunting enough task. But legend has it that the shipwrecks may not be entirely natural and that the fabled queen of the island relishes in turning each and every survivor into livestock.
If I needed proof that SA Chakraborty was improving and building on her craft with every single book, here it is.It took everything I loved about Amina and somehow improved upon it. I especially loved the scenes at Sarilaglag – there was about two pages of description that I reread about three times, I was that enthralled by the tiny world of criminality that Chakraborty created. Something about criminals / con artists / pirates and found family will always hit for me, so it’s no surprise that I loved the members of the Marawati so much.
I really loved the focus on female friendship in this book, especially the representation of the rougher parts alongside the smooth. Dalila was my favourite character in the first book (other than Amina, of course) and so I loved that she received so much more page-time, and her character so much more development and backstory.
Lab herself was a really interesting character, one that was more developed than the villain in the first book, Falco. Again, another aspect Chakraborty totally levelled up. She was far less of a caricatured ‘evil’; instead, we could understand her motives and almost sympathise with her. In Western mythology, Lab might be seen as a bit of a Circe figure (and there are definite similarities and echoes). There was also an element of thriller / mystery to the plot this time around, which I thought was so addictive.
And, of course, the ending truly went insane. I can’t say much but just know that I will be counting down the days till release (there isn’t even a release date set yet… RIP). I have truly loved working my way through SA Chakraborty’s backlist and am so so sad there isn’t anything more for me to read! But I will be sat, poised and ready, whenever she does decide to grace us with another instalment of Amina’s adventures.
So that’s everything I read in the month of June – definitely one in which I fixat ed on one author and read all of her works to date and it’s actually been one of my most enjoyable reading months ever, so I highly recommend that strategy (especially when the author is S.A. Chakraborty and everything she has ever written is pure magic).
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