Our Thoughts Precisely: The Stardust Thief by Chelsea Abdullah

Title: The Stardust Thief

Series: The Sandsea Trilogy #1
Author: Chelsea Abdullah
Source/Format: NetGalley (Orbit); eARC
More Details: Fantasy
Publisher/Publication Date: Orbit; May 17, 2022

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Synopsis from Goodreads...

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.

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

I’m always up for a good retelling/rework of classics. And when I heard about The Stardust Thief being inspired by One Thousand and One Nights, it easily became one of my most anticipated releases of 2022.

In a lot of ways, The Stardust Thief was a story about history as much as it was about stories. They held power, but they could become embellished and also twisted by the loss of a good portion of the context within their meaning. Given that the inspiration was One Thousand and One Nights, I was already expecting stories within the story to take a prominent role. I was really pleased with how well that was done.

The way Chelsea Abdullah laid out the society the characters inhabited was one of my favorite portions of the book. A lot of what happened challenged the status quo repeatedly, which blurred the lines between right and wrong, truth and lie, justified or outright villainy. And a lot of the time, the end didn’t justify the means, owing to the moral ambiguity of some of the characters. There were a lot of secrets, though there were ample instances where the dark undercurrents in the story were plainly visible. It was complicated.

Once the story moved on from where it initially began, there was a lot of travel. The harshness of the climate was always in the back of my mind as I was reading the first hundred pages or so. During the opening chapters, the story was firmly grounded in a flourishing city, but moving beyond it revealed a harsher landscape riddled with danger. The sand, the heat, the cold, and the weather were vividly told.

Some of the travel parts could be a little slow though, and there were points where I got a little frustrated with the story. However, once I hit the second half of the book, everything just snapped into focus; the characters and the world were being explored far more; and the central conflict (and the point of the quest for the lamp) got clearer. That was also around the point when I really appreciated the work that went into developing the connection between the characters as well as their personalities. When the going got tough, they only had each other to rely on. (Also, Loulie and Qadir were my favorites).

All in all, The Stardust Thief was a promising beginning to a new trilogy. And after THAT ending, I can’t wait for the sequel.

About the author....

Chelsea Abdullah is an American-Kuwaiti writer born and raised in Kuwait, where she grew up listening to stories about mysterious desert creatures and wily (only sometimes likable) heroes. Consumed by wanderlust, she has put down roots in various states. After earning her MA in English at Duquesne University, she moved to New York, where she currently lives. When not immersed in her own fictional worlds, she spends her free time playing video games, doodling characters, and hoarding books she doesn’t have the shelf space for. Her debut novel, The Stardust Thief, the first book in a trilogy, is releasing with Orbit in summer 2022.

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