The Stardust Thief The Stardust Thief

The Stardust Thief

    • 4.2 • 70 Ratings
    • $6.99
    • $6.99

Publisher Description

Inspired by stories from One Thousand and One Nights, this book weaves together the gripping tale of a legendary smuggler, a cowardly prince, and a dangerous quest across the desert to find a legendary, magical lamp.

Neither here nor there, but long ago . . . 

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.

GENRE
Sci-Fi & Fantasy
RELEASED
2022
May 17
LANGUAGE
EN
English
LENGTH
480
Pages
PUBLISHER
Orbit
SELLER
Hachette Digital, Inc.
SIZE
8.1
MB

Customer Reviews

bellreads ,

5/5

Captivating & magical; a book I couldn’t put down. I’ll be eagerly waiting the next in this series!

Antonia...……..... ,

Bloated plot but cool magic

Story is long, bloated, does lots of telling of inner thoughts instead of showing action. I felt confused about the main group’s motivations for risking their lives for.

Sometimes the motivations didn’t make sense. The fact that the group doesn’t even discuss why they want to continue the quest after revelation after revelation except to say, well, there was nothing else to do, also didn’t resonate. Like, an antagonist assigned the quest! Why keep going?? (For plot reasons it made sense, but not for character motivations.)

Sometimes it was that the motivations shifted way too much: from survival, to a need to understand one’s own self and past, to revenge and justice, and then back to survival and putting justice on hold? It’s a lot. It doesn’t help that the characters keep remembering/admitting new secrets about their past to the rest of the characters. This happens multiple times to most characters.

I saw one of the author’s twitter pitches for the story which said that magic might end if the heroes don’t succeed. What? I read the whole book and didn’t have that worry once!

Still the magic is cool, and I was drawn in by the way the jinn and human worlds work. I just feel like the author should have kept editing. Might read the sequel when it comes out in 2024, we’ll see.

Be forewarned it’s a trilogy and only the first book is out.

Adalheid ,

Enthralling

What a privilege to be drawn deeply into this magical and terrible world. Each chapter brings new revelations about the world and its characters. Strongly recommend!

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