The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi: A Novel

The Adventures of Amina al-Sarafi is a swashbuckling tale about a middle-aged, retired female pirate, who is given the opportunity of one final adventure. The story is set around the trade routes and towns on the coast of the Indian Ocean in the 12th century. When the wealthy mother of a former crewman tracks Amina down with the task of locating her missing daughter, Amina quickly seizes the opportunity to head back to sea on her beloved ship, the Marawati. She assembles her old team—Dalila (The Mistress of Poisons), Tinbu (a sailor) and Majed (the navigator). Soon enough, Amina and her crew discover that their adventure will be more dangerous than they thought: the ‘Frank’ (Historically the Latin Christians of Western Europe), Falco, that they are up against is not only an infamous bandit, but also has magical powers that could lead to the end of the humankind. He is after The Moon of Saba, a magical artifact that, in the hands of the wrong person, could wreak havoc. This was a fun, imaginative read with a unique premise. How often do you read about what happens after a character completes their hero's journey and retires? Not to mention, the location of the story is also truly special. How refreshing to read a book that takes place in the Islamic East, instead of the average Western locations! And, while the book starts a bit slow, the ending is, truly, an adventure! The other settings in the book were also amazing, and probably my favorite part of the book. Chakraborty…

A great female pirate adventure story that touched into the supernatural. A descriptively beautiful world was created from the story and I liked how it was done as a recounting of her tales to a scribe. I loved finding out who the scribe was at the end of the story. My biggest complaint with the story had nothing to do with the story itself, but rather with the narration on the audible copy. There were parts where the scribe interrupts the story and then Amina turns to talk to the scribe directly. These parts are so quiet and muffled on the audio that I missed what was being said. Even turning my volume up to full blast, wasn't enough to fully understand it. I ended up checking out the hardcover version from the library so that I could go back and read the missed parts, which distracted me from the story. I likely would have enjoyed the story even more without the interruption parts. My fave character of the tale was Recsh (sp?) as he was truly a diverse and unique character, who while painted to be the villain in the story, was actually more than not. He was selfish for sure, but he must have cared for Amina as well as he does end up helping and saving her quite a few times. I would love to read more stories set in this world, as long as the cast of characters remained the same, as they are what made the story enjoyable. They were all such a mish-mash of people who didn't belong together, but when together made such a harmonious crew. Glad that my book club finally…