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The City of Brass by S.A. Chakraborty

Fantasy

The City of Brass

Debut

We love supporting debut authors. Congrats, S.A. Chakraborty, on your first book!

by S.A. Chakraborty

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Quick take

S.A. Chakraborty’s richly detailed narrative and painstakingly imagined world building is the perfect escape from the real world, something we could all use these days.

Synopsis

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 . . .

Free sample

The City of Brass

He was an easy mark.

Nahri smiled behind her veil, watching the two men bicker as they approached her stall. The younger one glanced anxiously down the alley while the older man—her client—sweated in the cool dawn air. Save for the men, the alley was empty; fajr had already been called and anyone devout enough for public prayer—not that there were many in her neighborhood—was already ensconced in the small mosque at the end of the street.

She fought a yawn. Nahri was not one for dawn prayer, but her client had chosen the early hour and paid handsomely for discretion. She studied the men as they approached, noting their light features and the cut of their expensive coats. Turks, she suspected. The eldest might even be a basha, one of the few who hadn't fled Cairo when the Franks invaded. She crossed her arm over her black abaya, growing intrigued. She didn't have many Turkish clients; they were too snobbish. Indeed, when the Franks and Turks weren't fighting over Egypt, the only thing they seemed to agree on was that the Egyptians could't govern it themselves. God forbid. It's not as though the Egyptians were the inheritors of a great civilization whose mighty monuments still littered the land. Oh, no. They were peasants, superstitious fools who ate too many beans.

Well, this superstitious fool is about to swindle you for all you're worth, so insult away. Nahri smiled as the men approached.

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Why I love it

Come along for a tale of magic, mystery, and adventure in this wildly enchanting debut! A dizzyingly exciting Middle Eastern-inspired novel, filled with mythology, treachery, and schemes around every corner, The City of Brass is a beautifully told fantasy book that is perfect for fans of cons and conjurers, demons, and desert worlds.

Nahri is a young con woman who knows all the tricks to staying alive and ahead of the law on the streets of 18th-century Cairo. What she doesn’t know is where she came from, or why she can speak a language that no one else seems to understand.

But everything changes for Nahri during one of her cons when she accidentally summons demons—and Dara, a darkly mysterious djinn—while messing around with the language. Dara saves Nahri from the demons and tells her the tale of the legendary city of Daevabad—the City of Brass.

With still-angry demons looking for her in Cairo, Nahri decides it’s best to follow Dara to Daevabad, where she becomes embroiled in schemes of political corruption when she befriends Alizayd, a young prince hoping to overhaul his father’s rotten government. Will Nahri’s undeniable attachment to the city help her to realize her true powers, or will the conflict and chaos consume her?

S.A. Chakraborty’s richly detailed narrative and painstakingly imagined world building is the perfect escape from the real world, something we could all use these days.

Member ratings (2,649)

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Heartless Hunter
Starling House
The Lost Story
Bloodguard
The Courting of Bristol Keats
A Fate Inked in Blood
Five Broken Blades
The Road of Bones
Ink Blood Sister Scribe
Where the Library Hides
The Kingdom of Sweets
Hera
A Sorceress Comes to Call
Hell Bent
Kaikeyi
Weyward
The Unmaking of June Farrow
The Fragile Threads of Power
Beasts of Extraordinary Circumstance
The Book of Magic
The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue
A History of Wild Places
Gods of Jade and Shadow
The City We Became
A River Enchanted
The Inheritance of Orquídea Divina
Piranesi
Thistlefoot
Half Sick of Shadows
Ariadne
Ninth House
The Invisible Hour
Clytemnestra
Sourdough
Siren Queen
The Last Tale of the Flower Bride
Fate of the Fallen
Immortal Longings
Practical Magic
The Teller of Small Fortunes