S. A. Chakraborty is a NY-based speculative fiction writer and history buff. The City of Brass (The Daevabad Trilogy) is her debut (November 2017). It’s the first book of the trilogy, an epic fantasy set in the 18th century Middle East. Learn more about the author and her book, as well as ratings and reviews on the latter.
Originally (and proudly!) from New Jersey, S. A. Chakraborty currently resides in Queens with her husband and daughter. She is an organizer with the Brooklyn Speculative Fiction Writers’ Group.
When not buried in books about Mughal miniatures and Abbasid political intrigue, Shannon enjoys rambling about history, politics, and Islamic art, hiking, knitting, and recreating unnecessarily complicated medieval meals for her family.
The City of Brass: A Novel (The Daevabad Trilogy), the first book of the trilogy, was named one of the best science-fiction & fantasy books of the year by Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Library Journal, SyFy Wire, The Verge and Vulture.
Let’s dive now into the book story.
Synopsis:
Step into The City of Brass, the spellbinding debut from S. A. Chakraborty perfect for fans of The Golem and the Jinni, The Grace of Kings, and Uprooted, in which the future of a magical Middle Eastern kingdom rests in the hands of a clever and defiant young con artist with miraculous healing gifts.
Nahri has never believed in magic. Certainly, she has power; on the streets of eighteenth-century Cairo, she’s a con woman of unsurpassed talent. But she knows better than anyone that the trades she uses to get by—palm readings, zars, and a mysterious gift for healing—are all tricks, both the means to the delightful end of swindling Ottoman nobles and a reliable way to survive.
But when Nahri accidentally summons Dara, an equally sly, darkly mysterious djinn warrior, to her side during one of her cons, she’s forced to reconsider her beliefs. For Dara tells Nahri an extraordinary tale: across hot, windswept sands teeming with creatures of fire and rivers where the mythical marid sleep, past ruins of once-magnificent human metropolises and mountains where the circling birds of prey are more than what they seem, lies Daevabad, the legendary city of brass—a city to which Nahri is irrevocably bound.
In Daevabad, within gilded brass walls laced with enchantments and behind the six gates of the six djinn tribes, old resentments run deep. And when Nahri decides to enter this world, her arrival threatens to ignite a war that has been simmering for centuries.
Spurning Dara’s warning of the treachery surrounding her, she embarks on a hesitant friendship with Alizayd, an idealistic prince who dreams of revolutionizing his father’s corrupt regime. All too soon, Nahri learns that true power is fierce and brutal. That magic cannot shield her from the dangerous web of court politics. That even the cleverest of schemes can have deadly consequences.
After all, there is a reason they say to be careful what you wish for . . .
More information on the
KINDLE
HARDCOVER
PAPERBACK