A series I did not realize was a series until finally in quarantine I picked up City of Brass, loved it, and realized Hey! Book 2 is already out and Book 3 is coming out in June! I guess thats a benefit of waiting three years to pick up a book. 

Anyway I loved this series SO much. 

Book I starts off in 18th C. Cairo where we meet Nahri. She doesn’t have any family and is forced to make do with the skills that she has, namely healing abilities and conning people. She spends her days healing people in the community and working with an apothecarist. When one of her ceremonies goes wrong she ends up summoning a djinn warrior named, Dara and traveling with him to a magical city called Daevabad. 

When they arrive Nahri is catapulted into a world of family drama, intense politics and a long history of resentment between the six djinn tribes that she has to quickly try to understand.

I won’t go into the synopses of the rest of the books but just know that there’s enemies to lovers tropes, wonderful world building, and so many magical elements.

These books were honestly everything I needed right now. Long enough and fantasy enough to really draw me into them. Filled with characters that were complex and interesting. And emotionally devastating, but like in a good way, ya know? I love/hate a book with an ending that I know is right but also just like crushes me. Ooooof.

SERIES RATING:

*I’ve seen a lot of confusion on blogs and bookstagram about whether or not this is an Own Voices text. While Chakraborty is Muslim, she is a white American who converted to Islam. You can read some interviews she did that are linked from her website where she talks about this. In her about page she links to an interview with Kirkus and ScyFyWire.