“For when Amina chose to leave her home and return to life at sea, she became more than a pirate. More than a witch. She became a legend.”
A female pirate retired to a life of single-motherhood and relative domesticity takes to the sea for one more daring adventure? Sign me up. From the moment I first heard about Shannon Chakraborty’s The Adventures of Amina Al-Sirafi (Harper Voyager 2023), it was on my radar. I finally picked it up off my stack, and it was 100% not a letdown. This is the type of fantasy that I prefer – heavy on character development, light on the romance, with smart and sharp writing.
Amina has essentially retired from her life of notoriety. As there are many folks who would love to see her dead, she keeps a pretty low profile. She lives with her daughter and her mother off the beaten path. When an extremely wealthy woman shows up at her door, it soon becomes clear that her profile wasn’t as low as she’d hoped; Salima is the mother of one of Amina’s former crew mates – a man who met a horrific fate on her ship. She has sought out Amina because her son’s daughter, Dunya, has been kidnapped. Whether because of loyalty/guilt for her former crew mate, the offered reward, the threats against her own daughter or a combination of all three, Amina takes the job. And like any good nakhudha, she needs her ship and her crew. What follows is Amina getting the band back together and reclaiming her ship, the Marawati.
Have I mentioned that Amina was/is married to a demon who may or may not be dead and who may or may not be connected to the kidnapping? Oh… and the kidnapping may not actually be a kidnapping so much as a young girl running away from a life she doesn’t desire – in this case, however, it’s like jumping from a frying pan into the fire. Amina needs to save Dunya, save herself, keep her crew alive, and manage that demon that she entered a marriage contract with – high stakes as the villain here is a pretty powerful Franc who has tapped into some horrible blood magic, and Dunya is leading him to more magical artifacts to fed his blood lust for power.
I enjoyed the framework of the storytelling being that of a scribe writing down the tale from Amina’s mouth. I liked the interjections between the two of them, even more so by the end. I want more of Tinbu, Dalila, Majed, and Amina’s adventures. And yes, I do want more of Raksh – for better or worse.
The Adventures of Amina Al-Sirafi is refreshingly unique, and I can’t wait for the Marawati’s crew’s next adventure.
Read this book.
A Girl Named Tommi 