#Dead Djinn universe

[souldagger]

i reread A Master of Djinn recently and i’ve gotta tell u. Fatma and Hadia are still the detective duo of all time

#a master of djinn #fatma el-sha'arawi #dead djinn universe #my art #books #i’ve been futzing with this drawing for over a month without getting anywhere i’m happy with #so i've opted to simply Decide that it's finished <3

[haveyoureadthisfantasybook]

vote YES if you have finished the entire book.

vote NO if you have not finished the entire book.

(faq · submit a book)

#books #fantasy #A Master of Djinn #Dead Djinn universe #P. Djèlí Clark #poll #result: no #l: English

[tashashideousmeowing]

Gay magic steampunk detectives. Just. Gay magic steampunk detectives. Everyone go read this.

#a master of djinn #fatma el-sha'arawi #dead djinn universe #books #lgbtq

[tigger8900]

A Master of Djinn, by P. Djèlí Clark

⭐⭐⭐⭐

It's 1912 in Cairo: colonial powers have been rebuked by the return of magic to the world, clockwork and airships are the height of technology, and every single member of a secret brotherhood has just been murdered. A mysterious figure claiming to be al-Jahiz — the man responsible for the resurgence of magic 40 years ago — returned openly claims responsibility, and preaches a new revolution. Fatma el-Sha'arawi — an agent with the Ministry of Alchemy, Enchantments and Supernatural Entities — must discover the imposter's true identity and put a stop to his true plans, whatever they might be.

This started off slow, but by the end I couldn't put it down. The layers of deception and mesmerization, not to mention the foreshadowing of such, were very well done. While a few short stories and a novella have been previously published in this universe, you don't have to have read them to understand A Master of Djinn. The one thing you might have trouble with is the Angels. I don't really understand what they were. I'm also not convinced that reading the previously published material would have shed any more light on that, as I think they're supposed to be a bit unknowable.

Unfortunately, I found the steampunk setting to be underutilized. I believe it might have played a significantly larger role in the previous stories set in the universe, but in this novel the focus was largely elsewhere. It's a shame too, because we all know about steampunk London, but I was really looking forward to steampunk Cairo.

I really appreciated the dynamic between Fatma and her work partner Hadia, especially how their relationship grew over the course of the story. Most of the mysteries I've read lately have had the detective working mostly inside their own head, and it was refreshing to see a well-executed foil, even if it was reluctant at first!

This is the second P. Djèlí Clark story I've read, and I'm noticing a few patterns. First, his wry skewering of colonialism and white people who are being ignorant is very appreciated, and utilized well in this novel. And second, he seems to have a thing for writing women in sexual relationships with other women. To be clear I don't have any complaint with how they were written here, but if you're someone who avoids sapphic content written by men on principle, be advised.

#books #book review #p. djèlí clark #p djeli clark #a master of djinn #dead djinn universe #steampunk #historical fantasy #alternate history #afrofantasy

[logarithmicpanda]

Currently reading:

#a master of djinn #dead djinn universe #reblog later

[nikihawkes]

Book Review: The Master of Djinn by P. Djèlí Clark

Title: The Master of Djinn Author: P. Djèlí Clark Series: Dead Djinn Universe #1 Genre: Fantasy Rating: 3/5 stars The Overview: Cairo, 1912: Though Fatma el-Sha’arawi is the youngest woman working for the Ministry of Alchemy, Enchantments and Supernatural Entities, she’s certainly not a rookie, especially after preventing the destruction of the universe last summer. So when someone murders a…

View On WordPress

#book #book review #book reviews #books #dead djinn universe #fantasy #fantasy books #master of djinn #niki hawkes #p. djeli clark #the obsessive bookseller

[burningdarkfire]

okay i finished reading a master of djinn today and honestly the overall plot and writing quality was extremely mid but i didn’t know that a) it’s sapphic and b) the love interest is like .. kind of a catgirl ...... my specific interests were certainly piqued 👀

#my posts #dead djinn universe #liveblogging books

[angelsdean]

any continuation hinges on whether they're taking the "cas helped" at face value as "he's out of the empty and alive". the winchesters not showing cas with bobby and jack was pretty glaring and imo the right choice as it left room for chuck won theories to prevail and suggest that cas really ISN'T in heaven. plus jack dressed in a chuck-coded white blazer and acting a little off gives me hope that they'll lean into the chuck won theory or at the very least that the "god-power" is messing with jack and slowly corrupting him. like a lot of people always bring up "how will they undo the finale? they're dead. sam grew old and lived his whole life, if they bust out of heaven and go back to earth so many yrs will have passed" and well, first of all, this is supernatural. crazy shit happens. they could bust out of heaven and then time-travel, who knows! but, the simplest solution imo is, fake-heaven isn't real. it's a container for chuck!jack to keep his toys so they don't go messing with anything anymore (except, well, that didn't work out so well, dean already busted out once to save the multiverse. likely will happen again). and then sam on earth? another illusion. a pocket universe or a djinn dream-like state. not much time has passed at all, that's why sam looks young when he meets dean in heaven. like, sam presumably cuts ties with everyone he ever knew. marries some blurry wife. his whole life passes in montage, it would be so easy to say none of that was real. just something to keep sam occupied and placated so he doesn't go poking into things and realizing Something's Not Right.

#vic.txt #chuck won theory #spn s16

[battyaboutbooksreviews]

🖤 Black History Month ❤️

💛 Queer Books by Black Authors 💚

[ List Under the Cut ]

🖤 Felix Ever After by Kacen Callender ❤️ Under the Udala Trees by Chinelo Okparanta 💛 Warrior of the Wind by Suyi Davies Okungbowa 💚 I'm a Wild Seed by Sharon Lee De La Cruz 🖤 Real Life by Brandon Taylor ❤️ Ruthless Pamela Jean by Carol Denise Mitchell 💛 The Unbroken by C.L. Clark 💚 Labyrinth Lost by Zoraida Córdova 🖤 Skin Deep Magic by Craig Laurance Gidney ❤️ The Death of Vivek Oji by Akwaeke Emezi 💛 That Could Be Enough by Alyssa Cole 💚Work for It by Talia Hibbert

🖤 All Boys Aren't Blue by George M. Johnson ❤️ The Deep by Rivers Solomon 💛 How to Be Remy Cameron by Julian Winters 💚 Running With Lions by Julian Winters 🖤 Right Where I Left You by Julian Winters ❤️ This Is Kind of an Epic Love Story by Kacen Callender 💛 The Weight of the Stars by K. Ancrum 💚 This Is What It Feels Like by Rebecca Barrow 🖤 Son of the Storm by Suyi Davies Okungbowa ❤️ Black Boy Joy by Kwame Mbalia 💛 Legendborn by Tracy Deonn 💚 The Wicker King by K. Ancrum

🖤 Pet by Akwaeke Emezi ❤️ You Should See Me in a Crown by Leah Johnson 💛 Once Ghosted, Twice Shy by Alyssa Cole 💚 Cinderella Is Dead by Kalynn Bayron 🖤 Let's Talk About Love by Claire Kann ❤️ A Spectral Hue by Craig Laurance Gidney 💛 Power & Magic by Joamette Gil 💚 The Black Veins by Ashia Monet 🖤 Treasure by Rebekah Weatherspoon ❤️ The Sound of Stars by Alechia Dow 💛 Black Leopard, Red Wolf by Marlon James 💚 Full Disclosure by Camryn Garrett

🖤 The Black Flamingo by Dean Atta ❤️ Meet Cute Diary by Emery Lee 💛 A Phoenix First Must Burn (edited) by Patrice Caldwell 💚 Rise to the Sun by Leah Johnson 🖤 Things We Couldn't Say by Jay Coles ❤️ Black Boy Out of Time by Hari Ziyad 💛 Darling by K. Ancrum 💚 The Secrets of Eden by Brandon Goode 🖤 Ace of Spades by Faridah Àbíké-Íyímídé ❤️ Off the Record by Camryn Garrett 💛 Honey Girl by Morgan Rogers 💚 Ace of Spades by Faridah Àbíké-Íyímídé

🖤 How to Dispatch a Human by Stephanie Andrea Allen ❤️ Black Girl, Call Home by Jasmine Mans 💛 The Essential June Jordan (edited) by Jan Heller Levi and Christoph Keller 💚 A Master of Djinn by P. Djèlí Clark 🖤 A Blade So Black by L.L. McKinney ❤️ Clap When You Land by Elizabeth Acevedo 💛 Dread Nation by Justina Ireland 💚 Punch Me Up to the Gods by Brian Broome 🖤 Masquerade by Anne Shade ❤️ One of the Good Ones by Maika Moulite & Maritza Moulite 💛 Soulstar by C.L. Polk 💚 100 Boyfriends by Brontez Purnell

🖤 Hurricane Child by Kacen Callender ❤️ Quietly Hostile by Samantha Irby 💛 Coffee Will Make You Black by April Sinclair 💚 The Death of Vivek Oji by Akwaeke Emezi 🖤 If It Makes You Happy by Claire Kann ❤️ Sweethand by N.G. Peltier 💛 This Poison Heart by Kalynn Bayron 💚 Better Off Red by Rebekah Weatherspoon 🖤 Friday I’m in Love by Camryn Garrett ❤️ Rainbow Milk by Paul Mendez 💛 Memorial by Bryan Washington 💚 Patsy by Nicole Y. Dennis-Benn

🖤 Sorrowland by Rivers Solomon ❤️ How to Find a Princess by Alyssa Cole 💛 Yesterday is History by Kosoko Jackosn 💚 Mouths of Rain (edited) by Briona Simone Jones 🖤 Dead Dead Girls by Nekesa Afia ❤️ Love's Divine by Ava Freeman 💛 The Prophets by Robert Jones Jr 💚 Odd One Out by Nic Stone 🖤 Symbiosis by Nicky Drayden ❤️ Thanks a Lot, Universe by Chad Lucas 💛 The Passing Playbook by Isaac Fitzsimons 💚 Giovanni’s Room by James Baldwin

🖤 Little & Lion by Brandy Colbert ❤️ My Government Means to Kill Me by Rasheed Newson 💛 Pleasure and Spice by Fiona Zedde 💚 No Gods, No Monsters by Cadwell Turnbull 🖤 The Stars and the Blackness Between Them by Junauda Petrus ❤️ Filthy Animals by Brandon Taylor 💛 The City We Became by N.K. Jemisin 💚 Peaces by Helen Oyeyem 🖤 The Beauty That Remains by Ashley Woodfolk ❤️ Every Body Looking by Candice Iloh 💛 Bingo Love by Tee Franklin, Jenn St-Onge, Joy San 💚 The Heart Does Not Bend by Makeda Silvera

🖤 King and the Dragonflies by Kacen Callender ❤️ By Any Means Necessary by Candice Montgomery 💛 Busy Ain't the Half of It by Frederick Smith & Chaz Lamar Cruz 💚 Girl, Woman, Other by Bernardine Evaristo 🖤 Sin Against the Race by Gar McVey-Russell ❤️ Trumpet by Jackie Kay 💛 Remembrance by Rita Woods 💚 Daughters of Nri by Reni K. Amayo 🖤 You Know Me Well by Nina LaCour ❤️ The Summer of Everything by Julian Winters 💛 Butter Honey Pig Bread by Francesca Ekwuyasi 💚 Gingerbread by Helen Oyeyem

#black history month #queer romance #queer books #queer community #queer #book list #book blog #booklr #bookstagram #book lovers #book reader #book reading #books to read #reading #batty about books #battyaboutbooks

[augustinajosefina]

A request

Please suggest books to me! Preferably in the glove kink/lesbian space atrocities, urban fantasy or dark academia genres but I'll happily try any SF/fantasy at least once.

So far I've read and loved:

Before 2023

The Imperial Radch (Ancillary Justice/Sword/Mercy) - Ann Leckie

Jean le Flambeur (The Quantum Thief/The Fractal Prince/The Causal Angel) - Hannu Rajaniemi

The Windup Girl/The Water Knife - Paolo Bagicalupi

Memory of Water/The City of Woven Streets - Emmi Itäranta

2023

The Locked Tomb (Gideon/Harrow/Nona the Ninth) - Tamsyn Muir

The Masquerade (Traitor/Monster/Tyrant Baru Cormorant) - Seth Dickinson

Teixcalaan series (A Memory Called Empire/A Desolation Called Peace) - Arkady Martine

Machineries of Empire (Ninefox Gambit/Raven Stratagem/Revenant Gun/Hexarchate Stories) - Yoon Ha Lee

The Murderbot Diaries (All Systems Red to System Collapse) - Martha Wells

The Broken Earth (The Fifth Season/The Obelisk Gate/The Stone Sky) - N. K. Jemisin

Klara And The Sun - Kazuo Ishiguro

Xuya universe (The Citadel of Weeping Pearls/The Tea Master and the Detective/Seven of Infinities plus short stories) - Aliette de Bodard

This is How You Lose the Time War - Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone

The Goblin Emperor/The Witness for the Dead/Grief of Stones - Katherine Addison

Some Desperate Glory - Emily Tesh

2024

The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue - V. E. Schwab

The Craft Sequence (Three Parts Dead/Two Serpents Rise/Full Fathom Five/Last First Snow/Four Roads Cross/Ruin of Angels) - Max Gladstone

Babel: Or the Necessity of Violence: An Arcane History of the Oxford Translators' Revolution - R. F. Kuang

The Luminous Dead - Caitlin Starling

Last Exit - Max Gladstone

Dead Country - Max Gladstone

Read and liked:

The Moonday Letters - Emmi Itäranta

Great Cities (The City We Became/The World We Make) - N. K. Jemisin

Piranesi - Susanna Clarke

Autonomous - Annalee Newitz

Dead Djinn universe (A Master of Djinn/The Haunting of Tram Car 015/A Dead Djinn in Cairo/The Angel of Khan el-Khalili) - P. Djèlí Clark

Even Though I Knew the End - C. L. Polk

Station Eternity - Mur Lafferty

The Mythic Dream - Dominik Parisien & Navah Wolfe

Shades of Magic (A Darker Shade of Magic/A Gathering of Shadows/A Conjuring of Light/Fragile Threads of Power) - V. E. Schwab

The Stars Are Legion - Kameron Hurley

Ninth House/Hell Bent - Leigh Bardugo

Machine - Elizabeth Bear

Our Wives Under the Sea - Julia Armfield

She Is A Haunting - Trang Thanh Tran

Sisters of the Revolution - Jeff & Ann Vandermeer

Was uncertain about:

Light From Uncommon Stars - Ryka Aoki

The Kaiju Preservation Society - John Scalzi

Paladin's Grace - T. Kingfisher

The House in the Cerulean Sea - TJ Klune

In the Vanishers Palace - Aliette de Bodard

And read and disliked:

To Be Taught, if Fortunate - Becky Chambers

A Psalm for the Wild-Built - Becky Chambers

The Priory of the Orange Tree - Samantha Shannon

The Calculating Stars - Mary Robinette Kowal

The Space Between Worlds - Micaiah Johnson

How High We Go in the Dark - Sequoia Nagamatsu

Shadow and Bone - Leigh Bardugo

(My pride insists I add that I have, in fact, read other books as well. Just to be clear.)

#books #lesbian space atrocities #imperial radch #ann leckie #locked tomb series #the masquerade #baru cormorant #seth dickinson #teixcalaan series #arkady martine #machineries of empire #yoon ha lee #the murderbot diaries #martha wells #broken earth trilogy #nk jemisin #tamsyn muir #this is how you lose the time war #the goblin emperor #katherine addison #aliette de bodard #annalee newitz #paolo bagicalupi #some desperate glory #emily tesh #hannu rajaniemi #a master of djinn #p djeli clark #max gladstone #craft sequence

[souldagger]

so like. does siti count as a catgirl, or

#sorry i was struck with how stupid this drawing is halfway through. so you will have to simply imagine the second panel. fkjngk #a master of djinn #a dead djinn in cairo #dead djinn universe #fatma el-sha'arawi #my art #finally out a months long artblock and catching up on some ideas lets see how long it'll last <3

[norahastuff]

I’ve said this before, but 2x20 and Dean’s djinn dream really gets me. I mean, you have Dean bleeding emotions all over the place. His wish came true, he got Mary back, and it’s almost like he reverts to being a little kid. He’s so damn vulnerable. He gets to play house, his mom’s alive, Sam is happy... but he and Sam don’t have much of a relationship, because Dean’s fear has always been that the only thing keeping them together as a family was hunting. Without that, why would Sam bother with him? Then there’s also the fact that the Dean in this fantasy is a complete fuck up. He’s a drunk who steals, cheats, and lets down the people he loves. I think that’s another fear Dean’s always had about himself. Hunting and saving people allows him to think of himself as the hero, the good guy, but without that, he thinks there’s not much to him. 

Which is total bullshit. I mean, come on: can you ever imagine the Dean Winchester we know stealing his brother’s prom date? The same Dean who would walk over hot coals to see his brother happy. The second he ever notices Sam show interest in a girl, he completely backs away. But in this djinn universe, that’s the role he casts himself in. 

Also, John is dead, which is something that needs a whole other post to itself. The one thing I will say is that when Dean has his breakdown at John’s grave, when he pleads with him and asks “Why does it always have to be me?” John doesn’t answer. And Dean’s face is really something. It’s an “of course he’s not gonna fucking answer” expression. Whatever the universe, John will always be the unknowable, unreachable deity that Dean will never really be able to please. He’ll never get what he wants from John.

And then there’s Carmen. His partner in this world isn’t someone he knows or someone who knows him. It’s a model from a beer ad with the caption “go someplace better.” She’s not real. Dean doesn’t even have a concept of what a real partner would be. Dean seems a little troubled by that when he comes across the beer ad in the magazine. Like he’s disappointed by how empty his life is that he can’t even fantasise about a real person.

I also find that really interesting in the context of Lisa. The next time we see Dean fantasise about someone, it’s Lisa. He imagines a life with her and what could be. But the truth is, Lisa’s not any more real than Carmen was. She represents Dean’s fantasy of the kind of normal life he thinks he should want, but in reality doesn’t. Initially, you could claim he’s not happy with Lisa because he thinks Sam is trapped in the cage, but even after Sam comes back, Dean’s not satisfied with his suburban life. It’s not until he rips the tarp off the Impala and heads out on the road, do we see Dean actually smile and feel like himself again. 

Anyway, it’s all fascinating, especially in the context of s14/15. Like, take what everyone in his djinn world tries to tell him to convince him to stay: 

MARY: It's everything you want. We're a family again. Let’s go home.

JESSICA: You don't have to worry about Sam anymore. You get to watch him live a full life.

CARMEN: We can have a future together. Have our own family. I love you, Dean.

SAM: Why is it our job to save everyone? Haven't we done enough?

What Dean truly wants is a family. A home. He wants Sam to be happy and to have a life that he gets to be a part of. And he wants a partner who will raise a family with him. Someone who loves him. 

The reason he can’t stay in the djinn dream no matter how much he wants to? It’s not real. 

Cut to Cas, over a decade later looking Dean in the eye and telling him “Dean, you asked what about all this is real? We are.” And to Dean point blank telling John, in the home that he shares with his brother, his angel and their nephilim son, that he has a family. He’s happy with who he is, with who Sam is. 

And fucking cut to Cas, an angel who loved Dean so much, it rewired his entire existence. Someone who saw Dean, saw all of him, who knew him to his fucking core and loved him anyway. Loved him because of all that he saw, and not in spite of it. He’s not the fuck up he sees himself as. Cas sees him as he really is: someone who loves, who lights up the world around him, 

That’s something Dean thought he would never have. In the djinn dream Dean tells Mary that he has to leave. That none of this matters because it’s not real. Mary says: 

“It doesn't matter. It's still better than anything you had.”

It’s heartbreaking, but in the context of future seasons... Dean will have something better. And it’ll mean so much more because it’s real. 

#this episde man #2x20 #my spn thoughts #destiel #spn meta

[duckprintspress]

10 Queer Books with Black Main Characters for Black History Month

With February ending soon, Black History Month 2024 is approaching it’s end. Earlier this month, we shared 15 of our favorite queer books by Black authors. Basically all of the books on our first list have Black main characters, too, but that wasn’t enough – we wanted more. So we intentionally avoided overlap with that list when we made this one – 10 more queer books to celebrate Black characters, these all with Black main characters! (They may also have Black authors, we’re not saying they don’t, and in fact some authors overlap with the other list – we just wanted MOAR BOOKS.)

The Will of the Empress (The Circle Reforged series) by Tamora Pierce

Brooms by Jasmine Walls and Teo DuVall

Sweethand (Island Bites series) by N. G. Peltier

When The Stars Alight (The Essence of the Equinox series) by Camilla Andrew

Rust in the Root by Justina Ireland

The Monsters We Defy by Leslye Penelope

You Made a Fool of Death with Your Beauty by Akwaeke Emezi

The City We Became (Great Cities series) by N.K. Jemisin

A Master of Djinn (The Dead Djinn Universe) by P. Djèlí Clark

Anger Is a Gift by Mark Oshiro

What are your favorite queer books with Black main characters?

Want to chat your favorite reads with us? Join our Book Lover’s Discord server!

You can view this list as a bookshelf on Goodreads! The Goodreads list also includes books from our other Black History Month list, and as with our other Goodreads shelves, we’ll continue to add to it as we add more queer books to our account.

Love reading queer books? Our Queer Book Challenge is running on Storygraph through the end of 2024. Come join us!

The contributors to this list are Nina Waters ( @unforth on Tumblr), Dei Walker ( @dei2dei on Tumblr), Adrian Harley ( @adrianharley on Tumblr) and an anonymous contributor.

#duck prints press #book recs #book recommendations #queer books recs #queer books recommendations #black history month #black characters

[kaatiba]

The Storyteller, The Djinn & The Prince ✧ a WIP Re-Introduction

The crown prince has been kidnapped by the djinn, and his mother will stop at nothing to find him and bring him home, even if it means marching into the realm of the Unseen on what everyone insists is a hopeless mission. He's gone, she is told. Grieve him, for he is as good as dead. If he is returned to you, he will not be the same child you knew. But he isn't dead, and Queen Sirin refuses to accept his loss, refuses to grieve him, even if she is called mad for her insistence that he is alive, for her determination to rescue him. She cares not that no one has ever returned from such a venture. She's going to save her son or die trying. Enter Halah; the only person taken by the djinn who claims to have escaped them, rather than been returned. Only she can lead Queen Sirin and her cousin, Raoul, into the Unseen realm and guide them through the kingdom of the djinn...so when Sirin pleads for her help, she agrees. She can't abandon a child, even one she doesn't know. Even if it does mean returning to the last place in all the realms she ever wants to see again...

[[ Updates below the cut! ]]

Sixteen-ish years of working on this wip and I finally have a title! My favourite thing about the new title is that it all refers to multiple characters, which is SO fun to me. Spoilers though, so I shan't say more about that.

The title came to me just after suhoor (~6 am) in March, and I was so excited I immediately jotted it down in my phone before I fell asleep. Legends of Mourra was always the series title, but the volume I've been working on is the first in a series of standalone novels set in this world I've created!

For the longest time, I'd been planning for LofM to be a duology + a spin-off. But as volume no.1's story changed (and as I've changed as a writer), I've come to realize and accept that this is going to be a self-contained story and it works so much better that way. I've finally fully let go of the last remnants of the Grand™ Plot spanning entire decades that I'd initially conceived of. The Storyteller, The Djinn, & The Prince will be very much in the vein of a tale from Arabian Nights, self-contained and (hopefully) satisfying.

I've also finally allowed this to be truly my MC Halah's story, which is reflected in the title (she's the storyteller....or, one of them...). Weird, I know, but I'd initially wanted to write this from the pov of a 'sidekick' to the 'main heroes', but that meant I'd resisted actually letting Halah be a fully realized character. It made my story feel very flat and surface level. I only belatedly realized I could still make it seem so from the perspective of the events that occur in-universe, while still allowing Halah to be the main character of her own life, as we all our to ourselves.

I'll keep the tags I've been using because I'm used to them, so if you want more updates you can keep an eye on the #lofm.wip and #lofm.inspo tags specifically or #kaatibawrites tag more generally.

Thanks for reading!

#lofm.wip #kaatibawrites #wip reintroduction #wip introduction #kaatiba.edits

[kay-claire]

I finished A Master of Djinn by P. Djèlí Clark today and absolutely loved it.

Synopsis:

Cairo, 1912: Though Fatma el-Sha’arawi is the youngest woman working for the Ministry of Alchemy, Enchantments and Supernatural Entities, she’s certainly not a rookie, especially after preventing the destruction of the universe last summer. So when someone murders a secret brotherhood dedicated to one of the most famous men in history, al-Jahiz, Agent Fatma is called onto the case. Al-Jahiz transformed the world 50 years ago when he opened up the veil between the magical and mundane realms, before vanishing into the unknown. This murderer claims to be al-Jahiz, returned to condemn the modern age for its social oppressions. His dangerous magical abilities instigate unrest in the streets of Cairo that threaten to spill over onto the global stage. Alongside her Ministry colleagues and her clever girlfriend Siti, Agent Fatma must unravel the mystery behind this imposter to restore peace to the city -or face the possibility he could be exactly who he seems…

My Review

I highly recommend reading A Dead Djinn in Cairo, the 0.1 novella in this series, before starting this book! I skipped all the other novellas (though I'll probably get around to them when I can because I do love this universe), and didn't feel like it made a difference, but A Dead Djinn in Cairo is where Fatma and Siti meet, and the case they work on in that book is referenced multiple times in this book and has a huge impact on the overall plot - I would have been SO annoyed and confused by all those references if I hadn't read that book first. That out of the way, I LOVE this book. The setting - alternate universe 1920s Egypt with some steampunk vibes to it - is SO cool, the main characters are fantastic, and the plot and mystery are really fun. I wouldn't try and sell this as a romance (the main couple are already together at the beginning of the book and the story doesn't revolve around them too much), but Fatma is a butch lesbian with hot femme fatal girlfriend Siti, and Fatma's friendship with Hadia, her new partner in the department, is a delight. I also think it had some fantastic things to say about colonialism, racism, colourism, slavery and xenophobia - often with a fantastic dry humour to it. If you're a fan of A Marvellous Light's trilogy by Freya Marske I would highly recommend this to you.

#a master of djinn #p. djèlí clark #book recs #book recommendation #bipoc authors #queer books #lgbt books #sapphic books #booklr #reading #book review

[medievalthymes]

Hi, Sarah! Can you please make a list of your favorite books of 2022? I really appreciate your recommendations

aww for sure i can!

this was kinda a shit year for reading for me because i was finishing off my undergrad, i only got around to reading like 60 books rather an the 100 i wanted to, but there was definitely still some gems in there.

1. mexican gothic - silvia moreno-garcia

good old-fashioned gothic thriller

very atmospheric

anything moreno-garcia writes i will read so also check out their other books as well

2. wolf and the woodsman - ava reid

jewish representation

if you liked the winternight trilogy you'll like this one

again very dark and atmospheric, excellent winter vibes. a good one for this time of year.

the romance is top tier

2. a dead djinn in cairo - p. djèlí clark

fun novella

super quick read

setting is egypt 1912, steampunk alternate universe. top-notch world building

intriguing mystery

4. the long way to a small, angry planet - becky chambers

cozy space opera with an interspecies cast

good lgbt rep, a bit of romance. found family trope

part of a series but can be read as a standalone

while light it still manages to touch on some important issues and topics

5. the six deaths of the saint - alix e. harrow

another novella, only 30 pages but jesus this one packs a punch. feels like an epic novel. probably my favourite on this whole list.

historical fantasy

beautiful prose

on kindle unlimited, if you have that

i'm not going to go into any more detail because i don't want to spoil it but seriously. this is 30 pages, go read it and then come back and scream about it with me

6. lovelight farms - b.k borison

cutest fucking romcom i've read in a while

hallmark movie vibes but not cringy

MC owns a christmas tree farm, and in order to win a contest to get more publicity for the farm she asks her best friend to be her fake boyfriend. shenanigans ensue.

friends to lovers, mutual pining, fake dating. what more could you want?

happy reading!!

#i tried to include something for everyone #💌.mail