One of the 2022 nominees for the World Fantasy Awards, it is not the first in the series but I found I was able to read it and enough information was provided about the first book, I never felt lost. I think this was done very well. It’s not often that you’re able to read the second in a fantasy series and not feel lost. Perhaps that was why it was included on this list.
Set in Cairo, years ago Al-Haniz combined the realms and now our world is populated by Djinn, Fae, goblins, and angels. Fatma el-Sha’arawi works for the Ministry of Alchemy, Enchantments and Supernatural Entities, an organization that deals exclusively with crimes involving the supernatural entities that reside in Egypt. It’s always nice to read a story that doesn’t center on Western mythology. I am slightly familiar with the different types of Djinn from video games, so it was really cool to read a story populated by Marids, Afrits, etc.
I really wanted to like this book. It is in no way a bad book (thus why it won the 2022 Nebular award), but just wasn’t for me. I liked that it starred a lesbian protagonist (always great to see representation), had elements of a detective who-done-it, and contained characters that always had the odds stacked against them because they were going up against mythical beings. Although well-written and interesting, I thought the story really started to fall apart at the end. I had figured out the villain well before the main characters and in the final fight I felt like the villain pulled their punches for no reason at all. And the most important question, why did the different elements put this plan into motion was never really answered. Maybe that’s a question that is going to be answered in further books in this series.