The Stardust Thief: a dazzling discovery

 

Synopsis:

Loulie al-Nazari is the Midnight Merchant: a criminal who, with the help of her jinn bodyguard, hunts and sells illegal magic. When she saves the life of a cowardly prince, she draws the attention of his powerful father, the sultan, who blackmails her into finding an ancient lamp that has the power to revive the barren land—at the cost of sacrificing all jinn.

With no choice but to obey or be executed, Loulie journeys with the sultan’s oldest son to find the artifact. Aided by her bodyguard, who has secrets of his own, they must survive ghoul attacks, outwit a vengeful jinn queen, and confront a malicious killer from Loulie’s past. And, in a world where story is reality and illusion is truth, Loulie will discover that everything—her enemy, her magic, even her own past—is not what it seems, and she must decide who she will become in this new reality.

Review:

The Stardust Thief is a blaze of beauty. In a world inspired by Arabic folklore, where you can really feel the legends taking life around you, four main characters are sent by the Sultan of Madinne to retrieve an old lamp where a mighty Jinn king has been trapped centuries ago.

The story unravels slowly but at the right pace. The author lets us meet the characters, introducing them one by one and building a great introspection. We quickly fall in love with their background, all four of them have relatable characteristics and behaviors that let us readers familiarise ourselves with them in a matter of pages. Plus, the book is written from their point of view, so we easily enter their minds.

Mazen starts as a cowardly prince and a storyteller, and he grows word after word. A character that caught my attention with kind words. He’s not like any other character I’ve met during my life as a reader, he’s so… real, almost tangible. That’s why when this book ended, I found myself saying goodbye not to a mere character, but to a friend. His growth had been slow and true, it wasn’t precipitous, we watch Mazen learn how to survive, how not to run and be himself.

Aisha is a thief, a Jinn killer. She’s grumpy, detached, an ill-tempered character. I’ve loved her. For those precise reasons, it was impossible not to be fascinated by Aisha’s behavior. Her growth literally shocked me, some choices she made positively surprised me. Her past is still confused, we don’t know much about what happened to her before being a thief and for that reason (and so many others) I can’t wait to read book two.

Now what made me cry: Qadir and Loulie. Their bond, past, and chapters are the highest examples of found family. That’s what I mean when I say that I want to read about this trope. Qadir is still a puzzle to be solved not only for us but also for Loulie. Many secrets are discovered only at the end of the book and that leaves the reader as speechless as Loulie was.
They’re family, Qadir has always protected Loulie just like a father or an older brother. He would do anything for her, just like Loulie.

A relationship I didn’t expect to enjoy was the one between Aisha and Mazen. An unlikely beginning of a friendship that sets roots for a proper bond between the two of them. I’ve loved their interactions and the lessons both of them learned from each other.

The Stardust Thief isn’t only a masterpiece for its characters. The world-building, and all those legends that characterize the plot are what made the book a dazzling and adventurous story. The plot twists are just so well-written and impossible to predict before their revelation.

The author did a great job by writing a lot of descriptions that made the world seem more real than the one we’re living in. The writing is smooth and makes you really devour the book. There aren’t dead spots, when the characters aren’t fighting for their lives, the author deepens their characterization.

Even the magic system is peculiar. The Jinn are usually associated with evil by the majority of humans. But since the beginning, we meet Qadir, Loulie’s Jinn bodyguard, and we know that that’s not true. Jinn’s blood has the power to cure and to bring life to The Stardust Thief’s world, I have never heard of something like that, but magic isn’t only that. It has countless facets that make the system vast, but still very reasonable and fascinating. There are many legends from One Thousand and One Nights and I found myself speechless by the author’s skills in narrating those tales with such captivating writing.

I highly recommend this book to those who love adventurous and character-driven books. You’ll love Chelsea Abdullah’s world and prose so much that you’ll feel like a real character of The Stardust Thief.