Review: The Tapestry of Fate

The Tapestry of Fate by S.A. Chakraborty
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is the second book in the Amina al-Sirafi series, featuring a swashbuckling ex-pirate captain who is over forty with an eleven-year-old daughter. That alone would be enough to set this series apart, but this particular book deals with the ramifications of said ex-pirate captain, who has tried to leave her previous profession behind for a decade, being dragged back for one more job. Which, of course, is a familiar trope in itself, bordering on wrinkled and gray-haired, but when it's done this entertainingly, the reader doesn't mind (or at least this reader didn't).

If you think this book likely to be funny or rollicking, however, you are dead wrong. It's pretty dark, and harrowing in places. Amina is tasked with retrieving a so-called Transgression, a magical spindle which, as we come to find out, collects souls and forcibly inhabits bodies. It pairs up with a dying woman and grants her a rather ghastly immortality, and the two of them go on a rampage across the centuries, doling out revenge. Eventually they offend one of the powerful elementals of this world, and are imprisoned on a magical, isolated island. But humans have a habit of washing ashore on this island, and Queen Lab, as she comes to be called, builds a city and society...both based on illusions and lies, and imprisoning people in a never-ending torture in a world that is literally too good to be true, under the guise of "doing what is best for them."

Amina and her crew aboard her ship, the Marawati, sail to said island, and also wash up on the shore. At first, they are taken in by the queen's illusions. One member of the crew, the Mistress of Poisons, Dalila, goes so far as to join up with the queen and express a desire to stay. Dalila is an experienced con artist and seems to be playing both ends against the middle here, with a hidden agenda that eventually comes out (Amina has been poisoned when she rescued Dalila from captivity, and the latter is trying everything, even pretending to suck up to the queen, in her quest for a cure). Amina and Dalila's friendship goes through quite the upheaval in this book, with some nice character development for both.

Amina's estranged husband, Raksh (spirit of chaos, demon, elemental, djinn? Amina still doesn't know for sure) plays a prominent role in this book, with Amina finally agreeing to "let you make me a legend" in exchange for his help in destroying the queen. Raksh seems a right bastard most of the time, but he comes through in his own twisted way when the chips are down. The queen is defeated, the city's survivors brought on board the Marawati, and Amina sails across the ocean to reunite with the family she left behind...only to discover, in the last scene and page of the book, that...and I'm not going to reveal this here. Go to Goodreads to find out. 

Oh my god. When I got to that last page, I let out a shriek. I need the next book, like, yesterday.

There's some relevant themes of hubris and power in this story, and a ruler actually thinking they have the right to impose their will on their subjects, all with the idea of making things better for them. The hatred of those subjects who were never asked, and their desperate need to escape even if such escape ends in death, makes a pretty indelible impression, both on Amina and the reader. This book is definitely not for those who want their pirates light and frothy and repeatedly exclaiming "arrr, me hearties." There's quite a bit of grimness to it, so be prepared.

Nevertheless, this is a worthy follow-up to the first book, if you can stand that cliffhanger and all of its implications. It certainly turns the series upside down, and I hope the follow-up lives up to it.

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