Boundless Press | The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi: A ...

The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi: A new fantasy series set a thousand years before The City of Brass

Shannon Chakraborty

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“A thrilling, transportative adventure that is everything promised—Chakraborty's storytelling is fantasy at its best.” — R.F. Kuang, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Babel and The Poppy War

“An exhilarating, propulsive adventure, stitched from the threads of real history, Amina’s adventures are the reason to read fantasy.” — Ava Reid, internationally bestselling author of Juniper & Thorn

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.

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Posts about this title from Boundless Press

Boundless Press\ \ Jananie\ \ • Sep 11 2023

the 40+ books on my fall TBR 🍁🍂 fall book recommendations ☕️

tell me your fall book recommendations in the comments! 🍁🍂

🎃 books mentioned 🎃

Misc. ↳ rouge ↳ she walks in shadows ↳ silver nitrate

Dark Academia ↳ in these hallowed halls: a dark academia anthology ↳ vita nostra ↳ plain bad heroines

“Classic” horror ↳ rebecca ↳ interview with a vampire ↳ dark tales

Real World Horror ↳ natural beauty ↳ lakewood ↳ her body and other parties ↳ bad cree ↳ weight of blood

Vampires ↳ vampires of el norte ↳ a dowry of blood ↳ masters of death ↳ house of hunger ↳ the book eaters

Haunted House books ↳ a house with good bones ↳ she is a haunting ↳ the hacienda ↳ just like home

Deathly Retellings ↳ a haunting on the hill ↳ the death i gave him ↳ one for my enemy

Cozy fantasies ↳ legends & lattes ↳ the very secret society of irregular witches ↳ venco ↳ emily wilde's encyclopaedia of faeries

Fantasies ↳ nettle & bone ↳ gods of jade and shadow ↳ juniper & thorn ↳the wolf & the woodsman ↳ the bone orchard ↳ the adventures of amina al-sirafi

Other ↳ my dark vanessa ↳ station eleven ↳ glass hotel ↳ sea of tranquility

socials 🤍 instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thisstoryaintover/ 🤍 twitter: https://twitter.com/jananiekvelu 🤍 tiktok: https://www.tiktok.com/@thisstoryaintover?lang=en 🤍 storygraph: https://app.thestorygraph.com/profile/thisstoryaintover 🤍 goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/thisstoryaintover

💌 for business/sponsorship inquiries please contact eric@smallscreenmarketing.com 💌 for all other inquiries please contact me at thisstoryaintover@gmail.com

faqs 🤍 how do you pronounce your name? - my name is Jananie—pronounced JEN-nuh-nee (like a knee!)

🤍 what's your background/ethnicity/etc? - both my parents are Sri Lankan Tamil, and I was born and raised in Canada!

🤍 what is your job? - aside from youtube I also work in product marketing!

40 books

Posts about this book from across Bindery

DocoftheDarkArts\ \ Bob Stuntz\ \ • Apr 17

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[This post is not, strictly speaking, fully book related. But I hope you'll stick with me, because this is an important topic that is really important to me. And I will recommend some books.\ \ ***Trigger warning: This post will discuss SA and domestic violence***\ \ A recent CNN report exposed an online network of men discussing how to drug women and commit SA, the targets often being their partners. The website that was most implicated had over 62 million views, and a majority of views were coming from IP addresses in the US.\ \ And while this may be written off by some as an isolated issue, in the online book world, we see women, people of color, and marginalized groups treated poorly every day. I see women in the book world having to deal with male commenters accusing them of "showing off their bodies for views," while at the same time sending them suggestive material in their DMs. Every time someone tries to post a video suggesting more diverse sci fi and fantasy authors, they are met with backlash, and the inevitable "I don't care who writes the books I read." The pushback to representation and fair treatment is often, quite frankly, staggering. All the while, women are criticized for reading "smut." Women who write fantasy stories with any romance get labeled as romantasy authors, while their male counterparts are just fantasy authors. We shame women for reading sexual material, but don't bat an eye to the sexual goings on traditional fantasy because "it's gritty and realistic for the era."\ \ I'm a dad to teenage boys. I have a wife, sisters, nieces and nephews. My boys and I talk a lot about making other people feel safe around us, treating everyone equally and with respect, and avoiding the pitfalls of the modern hoax of "masculinity." In an era where influencers are trying to convince boys to looksmax, heightmax, or take testosterone supplements in their teens (please don't do that), our young men are more and more being exposed to patriarchal, overly macho, chauvinistic ideas of what being a man means.\ \ I'm someone who believes in facts, and data. So here are some facts (according to Take Back the Night):\ \

1 in 3 women worldwide experience some form of sexual violence or intimate partner violence.\ \
2 in 3 transgender people have been sexually assaulted.\ \
People in the LGBTQIA+ community are more likely to experience sexual violence.\ \
Less than 50% of victims report these crimes.\ \ \ As a man, it is easy to react to all of this with the "well that's some men, not all men." And much like Sciona in ML Wang's brilliant Blood Over Bright Haven, confronting your own biases, and those of our society, can be a difficult process. It can also feel frustrating and leave you with a sense of "what can I actually do?" Well, as someone engaged in bookish content, here's what you can do:\ \
Call out ignorance and injustice when you see it, and stand for what's right.\ \
Read broadly and diversely, and share those stories and authors with other readers.\ \
Encourage the young men in your life to read as well. Encourage them to get off their phone, encourage them to talk about their feelings, and encourage them to be safe, welcoming people.\ \
LISTEN to the women in your life. Seek to learn about their experiences.\ \
Be a safe space for women, and all marginalized groups.\ \
When you can, contribute to organizations that do work on behalf of those most at risk.\ \ \ One of the only tangible things I can do is donating money to good causes. I have a social media platform that is fortunate to have grown to a point where I make some money from it. In full transparency, it is less than $100/month. Every month $25 of that goes back to the prizes for our monthly reading challenges, and the rest is donated to causes that are important to me. So, starting here in April and for the foreseeable future, I will be donating the balance of whatever I make through my platforms, and matching it up to $100 each month, to Take Back The Night. TBTN is a "501(c)(3) Foundation is to end sexual violence in all forms, including sexual assault, sexual abuse, trafficking, stalking, gender harassment, and relationship violence, and to support survivors in their healing journeys." In the future, I will make it public what other organizations I will be donating to.\ \ I have a great inclusive community of folks here on Bindery and on Discord. if you would like to also support Take back the Night, you can support by becoming a member here on Bindery, buying a book here through Bindery, watching my YouTube videos, or buying books from my Bookshop.org affiliate store (which has the added bonus of supporting indie bookstores!). I also intend to more intentionally share authors and stories that represent a diverse spectrum (I'm almost done with the Wheel of Time, I promise). For starters, you can check out my "Diverse Reads" bookshelf here on Bindery.\ \ We also have a number of women and members of underrepresented communities here amongst our ranks. If you have any suggestions, perspectives, or tips to share for those of us who are trying to learn, grow, and be better, let us know in the comments.\ \ Thanks for reading, thanks for being here, and thank you for your support - know that it is going to a good cause, and as a creator I fully intend to continue to promote kindness, safety, and inclusivity. And if you want to read some of my favorite female authored books with excellent female perspectives, I've linked a few to this post.](https://docofthedarkarts.binderybooks.com/item/TgyRNjB2nLaW4HkoMDJM/)

We Need to Do Better

5 books

chronicallybookish\ \ Kaley\ \ • Feb 25

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4 books i want t0 read by the end of february

We’re just gonna pretend I don’t have 4 assignments due by the end of the month 🫶🏻 #booktok #romancebooks #fantasybooks #tbr #toberead @HarperCollins @Simon Teen @Read Forever Pub @Grand Central Publishing

4 books

Chanterelle Solace\ \ Sabie\ \ • Dec 19 2025

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Get a Rec from me & What my Taste in books look like

What are some books that represent your taste overall and do we have any in common? 👀

Before we dive into this, Bindery now has an option to request recs and you can go to the 🔗 in my bio and click “Get a Rec” and ask for details of what you’d like from the books I’ve read! I’m also making lists of 2026 releases in fantasy, romance and horror so far so happy to share some of these early on with you guys (these will be recs of what I’m looking forward to rather than what I’ve read) so GO GO GO 🤎

As for my taste in books, I’m never going to be the type that picks only 5 top books for the year guys and I’ve learned to accept it because honestly, what do you mean my top 5 books in one year? I would have to host a meeting with myself for a whole month to decide that 😭 So instead, you guys get my taste in books throughout various sub-genres that I yap about all the time!

Here is a list of the books (if you prefer to read through it or for accessibility needs)🤎: Cottagecore: 🍄 Emily Wilde’s Encyclopaedia of Faeries 🍄 After the Forest by Kell Woods 🍄 A Witch’s Guide to Love and Poison by Aamna Qureshi 🍄 The Geographer’s Map to Romance by India Holton 🍄 The River has Roots by Amal El-Mohtar 🍄 An Arrow to the Heart by K.R. Bacher

Cozy Fantasy: 🍄 The Baby Dragon Cafe by Aamna Qureshi 🍄 Legend & Lattes by Travis 🍄 The Teller of Small Fortunes by Julie Leong 🍄 The Nameless Restaurant by Tao Wong 🍄 Watermoon by Samantha Sotto Yambao 🍄 The Spellshop by Sangu Mandanna

Witchycore: 🍄 The Hedgewitch of Foxhall by Anna Bright 🍄 House of Frank by Kay Synclaire 🍄 The Lone Wolf Cafe by Sydney Wilder 🍄 The Witch and the Tsar by Olesya Salnikova Gilmore 🍄 A Witch’s Guide to Magical Innkeeping by Sangu Mandanna 🍄 Best Hex Ever by Nadia El-Fassi

Retellings, Fairy Tale & Historical Fantasy: 🍄A Sorceress comes to Call by T.Kingfisher 🍄 What the River Knows by Isabel Ibanez 🍄 Divine Rivals by Rebecca Ross 🍄 We Shall be Monsters by Tara Sim 🍄 The Briar Book of the Dead by A.G Slatter

The rest is in my pinned comment!

#fantasybooks #topbooksof2025 #favoritebooks

74 books

The Alchemist Society\ \ Shay\ \ • Oct 25 2025

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My top fantasy and sci-fi book recs

Replying to @cwillev7 My top fantasy and sci-fi book recs #tiktokbookrecscontest #books #booktok #bookish #reading

9 books

Discotopia | Diverse Books\ \ Disco (he/they)\ \ • Aug 27 2025

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Hi Party People and Disco Dancers!\ \ I’m getting back into the swing of fantasy books after a long stint enjoying romance and sci fi. This got me thinking about some of my favourites, and what’s different these days from the books I used to read. One major difference is that I have access to more books with Arabian influence, something I rarely saw on shelves growing up. I was raised on stories like Arabian Nights, Sinbad the Sailor and Ali Baba, but I didn’t see these influences in modern fantasy books (in the UK) until recently.\ \ Here are some books that blend folklore and Arabian influences into fantasy:\ \ From Whole Cloth by Sonia Sulaiman\ \ \ \ I loved this queer, asexual retelling of the Palestinian folktale ‘The Story That Begins and Ends with Lies’. A Prince is told he has to marry, but he only wants to spend his time with a woman who tells stories made up of inly lies. When he meets a woman who seems to be his fated match, they must both discover what they really want, and a way to live in their truth (and lies).\ \ The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi by Shannon Chackraborty\ \ \ \ A 40+ year old mother with bad knees gets the band back together for one last adventure, sailing the high seas and encountering pirates, sorcerers and mythical creatures.\ \ This gave me all those wonderous feelings I got from stories like Sinbad as a kid. It’s so fun, it features a queer side character, and so many twists, turns and richly described bustling cities, islands and magical creatures. One of my favourite reads of 2023.\ \ The Ending Fire trilogy by Saara el-Arifi\ \ \ \ Saara el-Arifi is now one of my favourite authors. The first book, The Final Strife, absolutely blew me away. It’s inspired by Arabian and Ghanaian mythology, about a brutal world where the colour of your blood determines your status, and three women of different blood types who seek to bring down the oppressive regime.\ \ It’s fast paced, richly described, and incredibly gripping. And queer!\ \ All the best,\ \ Disco x\ \ Join for free or login

Diverse Discoveries: Arabian Fantasy

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I love all of these authors, and will buy anything they write.

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I’m kidding, please ask me!!! #booktoker #booktok #bookrecommendations

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I'm ranking every book the Fantasy & Frens Book Club read together in 2023!

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