📕 Title: The Stardust Thief
✏️ Author: Chelsea Abdullah
📖 Genre: Fantasy
⭐ Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐
📝 Perfect for fans of the Daevabad trilogy.

BOOK BLURB

Loulie al-Nazari, better known as the Midnight Merchant, makes her living selling illegal magic alongside her jinn bodyguard. When she rescues Prince Mazden from a deadly situation, the sultan learns of her talent for finding magic. He directs Loulie to locate a legendary ancient lamp, sending his older son, Prince Omar, and Aisha, one of his forty thieves, along with her. But things are not as they seem, and secrets come to light as the four encounter magical beings and old enemies.

REVIEW

This epic fantasy adventure takes inspiration from One Thousand and One Nights, featuring jinns, magic, and a prince in disguise. Legends are woven into the story, the world is well crafted, and overall it’s an impressive debut.

There is some humor, lots of adventure, and fantastic characters. This is definitely not a romance, focusing more on platonic found family relationships. I especially loved the relationship between Loulie and Qadir, which had some heartwarming–and heartbreaking–interactions. Mazden’s character arc was great and I grew to like him a lot more as I read further. Aisha is a complex character, a confident and skilled fighter who has little patience for Mazden.

The length and pacing of this novel dragged it down a notch. As the story moves between three POVs, it sometimes feels repetitive and interrupts the action. Most chapters are very short so the POV changes constantly. Especially near the end, there were lots of pages that slowed down the pace. I would have enjoyed this more if it was a bit shorter.

Overall, I enjoyed this book and can’t wait for the next one!