The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi
The Amina al-Sirafi series, Book 1
Shannon Chakraborty
HarperCollins
Fiction, Adventure/Fantasy
****+ (Good/Great)
DESCRIPTION: Once, Amina al-Sirafi was a legend of the Indian Ocean, a pirate queen whose adventurous reputation rivaled that of her father and grandfather before her. She stole, tricked, and fought her way through countless ports, and had more than one brush with the supernatural. But ten years ago, a tragedy of her own making made her walk away from the sea and her old crew. Now, she lives a modest and secluded life with her mother and young daughter, hiding from the many enemies she made during her seafaring career. But no legend can stay hidden forever; a determined old woman tracks her down and demands the help of the former pirate queen in tracking down a wayward granddaughter. A shady Frankish foreigner from distant Christian lands has been poking around after old manuscripts and purportedly magical relics, and has abducted the young lady for no doubt nefarious purposes, whisking her off across the sea. Amina wants nothing to do with relics or foreigners or any of this - she's surely too old for the swashbuckling life anymore, despite that tiny voice her head that still dreams of the sea - but the stranger threatens her family with exposure... plus she offers enough money to ensure her family's safety for generations. There's much about her story that strikes Amina as off, but she has no choice if she wants to keep her daughter safe, and surely it shouldn't be too tough to ask a few questions in some of her old haunts for some word of the Frank who claims to dabble in sorcery. (And, of course, the money doesn't hurt, either.)
She should have known that it wouldn't be that easy. She should have listened to her instincts warning her that this was no simple matter of a rich lady paying far too much to seek out a wayward girl. All too soon, Amina finds herself swept up in an adventure even wilder and more dangerous than any she faced before.
REVIEW: The cover and blurb promise a rollicking swashbucker with a fierce, clever, occasionally foul-mouthed lady pirate, and the story delivers in full. In the vein of Sindbad, Amina is an adventurer as much as a fortune seeker, as enthralled by new wonders and new lands as she is by treasure, sailing in a place and time that's a step to the side of our own history, a Crusades-era Indian Ocean that also holds sea monsters and demons and spirits from the numerous cultures and traditions along its shores. She tries to be a good person when she can, as faithful a Muslim as she can manage (especially after retirement), but has not led a blameless life and makes no excuses for her faults, carrying a burden of guilt underneath her confident swagger and smile. Since becoming a mother, her perspective and priorities shifted radically, but she still has that adventurer's soul, and still yearns for a life she told herself she outgrew. Thrust back onto the captain's bench of her beloved ship (which she still owns, though she handed over control to a former crewmate when she left), she cannot help but feel a bit thrilled at a chance to relive her glory days, despite the circumstances - circumstances that, naturally, get far, far worse than she bargained for very, very fast. But while she may be a bit rusty from retirement, and though her knee may twinge these days and her night vision's not as sharp, she is still, at heart, the same Amina al-Sirafi of legend and song, blessed with an abundance of wit and guile and luck (both good and ill)... all of which she'll need when it becomes clear that the Frank, the pale foreigner who may or may not have abducted a sheltered and bookish young woman, is no mere pretender to black magic. From start to finish, the story rolls along through wild wonders and great dangers and strange enchantments, punctuated by excerpts elaborating upon Amina's reputation and the reputations of her crewmates, all of whom are decently solid characters in their own rights, not mere props existing to bolster Amina's tale. The whole feels both fresh and classic, a great salty yarn of a tale that promises more adventures ahead.
All that said, I will say that I nearly knocked the rating back because of the audiobook presentation. The narrator had an annoying habit of mumbling and whispering several stretches of dialog, and at time leaning away from the mic to deliver asides (the story is being narrated to a scribe, and Amina is interrupted now and again by goings-on around them). Unless the listener is in a soundproof room, ambient noise is going to drown out those dropped-volume stretches even on earbuds; I had to keep cranking up volume to hear quiet and muffled bits, only to get my eardrums painfully blasted when normal volume returned.
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