Goodreads Choice Awards Book Club discussion

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.

I read this last year and liked it, but liked her Daevabad trilogy better.

ooh I haven't read anything else by this author! I'll have to check out the other trilogy! Thank you!

I read this too and while I enjoyed the adventure, I didn't feel like I need to read the next books in the trilogy.

Trisha wrote: "ooh I haven't read anything else by this author! I'll have to check out the other trilogy! Thank you!"

Yay! I gave the first book 4 stars and gave the 2nd and 3rd books 5 stars. Hope you'll like them too.

Bana, that's good info! Hopefully it'll be a trilogy I'll want to continue, too. :)

Starting this one today.

Through Ch. 10 (34%)

(view spoiler)[Well, I'm really liking this one so far. I love that the characters are older and more mature and wiser by age/experience, and they're so diverse. I think the world building is awesome, too.

I like the characters so far and I'm starting to wonder what other secrets they all carry. It seems like they all have secrets. Layth's death was a surprise so I'm curious if that was caused by Falco and his magic or something else. I'm also curious about Salima's son and how Amina killed him. And who's her daughter's father? Is it Salima's son that Amina killed? Hmm...this is getting interesting.

Also, I''m curious about the myth of the Moon of Saba. I'm guessing they're going to try to find it or possibly see if they can find Dunya because of her interest in it, maybe she's where they think it might be? (hide spoiler)]

I'm loving this one so far.

8 chapters

(view spoiler)[ ha! I love her close crew so far
Dalila is hilarious but I also like how grounded and skeptical she is!
and Tanbu - he was lucky they arrived

but it also sucks they burned their chance to find out more information

I'm a bit nervous this Falco guy is just aiming to bring Amina out - and you have to wonder why. She must have either stolen something from him or hurt someone he loved.
(hide spoiler)]

interested to see where it goes from here!

16 chapters

(view spoiler)[ well, so now we've got most of her crew together
and we know what happened to the one that's missing

because we just met her demon of a husband. ooops lol
I wonder if she will really be able to hide her daughter

and now they are going into a cave. I wonder if the daughter will actually want to go with them or if she likes adventuring and searching for the items she wanted (hide spoiler)]

I’m so glad you love it so!

I'm pretty busy today, but now that you're entering some thoughts I'll come back and comment. I wanted to wait for you so we can have some back-and-forth. It's more fun to me doing it that way.

Through Ch. 16
(view spoiler)[OMG! Raksh! He is literally demonic! Ugh…weird how the description of him was so disgusting and yet beautiful at the same time. I definitely was not expecting her husband and the father of her daughter to be a demon hundreds of years old! I hate that he’s her daughter’s father. I hope he never finds out, but that doesn’t seem feasible. I’m surprised she trusts Raksh enough to take him with her to find Dunya. (hide spoiler)]

Through 25
(view spoiler)[OMG! Falco is scary as hell! Whatever potion he gave her that incapacitated her was awful, but the way Raksh got it out of her was almost equally disgusting. Lol As it turns out, Raksh is a coward! Lol That sea monster and that entire scene was so intense! Amina got lucky that she lived, but then when she was washed ashore and Raksh was there, she was so mad at him for stealing the dunij. What a coward! I wonder where Falco took Dunya. (hide spoiler)]

Finshed
(view spoiler)[Poor Amina ending up in court. Jeez…what a journey she went on. I have a feeling that she might get back with Raksh in upcoming books, at least for sex. Lol The Moon of Saba turned out to be a freaking washbasin? I wasn’t expecting that…sort of anticlimactic. But it sure did serve its purpose. I’m glad that Dunya decided to pursue her dreams and not go back to Salima’s! I am hoping we’ll get a lot more of her in book 2 which I will definitely read. (hide spoiler)]

What I remember when I read this was that it was fun and action-packed, but I'm not that invested in the story since the stakes seem really low. We know that Amina survives because she's telling the story to someone. I thought the (view spoiler)[wash basin (hide spoiler)] was pretty funny and subversive in a way.