Each day, Marjana seemed more newly mature, a seedling thriving after the rain. It brought me a sort of wistful pride. How swiftly our children grown up, youthful aspects melting away before we blink.
Chapter 6
Table of Contents
Why The Tapestry of Fate?
Long time readers of this blog will know that I read the entirety of Shannon Chakraborty’s Daevabad trilogy over the course of a single week in May 2025, which just so happens to be just a year ago as of the time of me reading The Tapestry of Fate. I didn’t realize that bit of serendipity until I started writing this paragraph.
Suffice to say I am a fan of Shannon Chakraborty’s particular flavour of historical fantasy and the Daevabad trilogy remains one of my all time favourite fantasy series, especially in the realm of completed series where currently there is nothing else. So when I heard that there was a new book in the Amina al-Sirafi series coming out this year I immediately put in an ebook preorder for it on the Kobo ebook store.
I read the first book in this series in 2024 and I liked it well enough back then to be excited to get back into the world that Shannon created, and I was especially looking forward to going back to Amina El-Sirafi as a character who I find to be very intriguing.
So let’s get into it.
The Book
The Tapestry of Fate is a historical fantasy novel that continues the tale of one Amina al-Sirafi, a middle aged pirate who is tasked with retrieving certain powerful magical artifacts known as Transgressions for the council of immortal peris. In this particular book she is given what seems to be an impossible task, retrieve a Transgression from a powerful sorceress on a mysterious magical island that no one can leave.
Now before we go any further, it is worth noting that this is the second book in the series and it is a direct sequel to the first one and has returning characters. So if you are discovering this series with this release then you should definitely start with the first book. Understanding aspects of this book depend on having knowledge of at least the characters and general set of events from the first book.
Since I read the first book a couple years ago, I did forget a lot of what happened but I remembered just enough to be able to follow this book. I remembered the major characters and some of the major events from the first book though not all of them. Thankfully, most of the book takes place on the island and a large chunk of Amina’s interactions are with characters new to this book.
Characters
Most of The Tapestry of Fate is from the perspective of Amina al-Sirafi with brief interlude chapters from the perspective of a different character. Like with the first book in the series, I continue to find Amina to be an intriguing character with a fair amount of depth. She is a mother, a pirate, a ship’s captain, and also someone with supernatural abilities that regularly deals with entities vastly more powerful than her – namely the immortal peris, and her husband Raksh.
This book introduces a new character, Queen Lab, sorceress and queen of the island Amina and her ship’s crew are stranded on, an island by the name of Khatti Ugal. Lab herself is the most interesting character of this book. Lab’s character is developed in two ways – with her interactions with Amina and her friend Dalila, and the interlude chapters which provide historical context to why Lab is the way she is.
I liked Queen Lab as a character. The book’s narrative structure did a fantastic job of lending complexity to her character and providing reasons to care about her. It also made sure that we understood that she is still the villain of the story and her actions while understandable within the context of her long life are still not excusable and the book makes no attempts at that.
Dalila and her relationship with Amina also plays a major part in this story. I found this aspect a little harder to connect with, mostly because a lot of it was dependent on events from the first book that I don’t remember. That said, I very much liked the complicated story of female friendship which was made more interesting by the fact that Dalila herself is not always open to reciprocate Amina’s feelings for various reasons.
Themes and Vibes
The Tapestry of Fate wears its themes on its sleeve. Right off the bat, the title of the book itself alludes to one of primary themes – fate. The spindle, an otherwise ordinary object is used as an allegory akin to the Fates from Ancient Greek myth – imbued with the ability to change the fates of others drastically.
The power of that spindle is also intimately tied with Lab herself who we find out originally wanted to enact vengeance on the people who hurt her and her people. Lab then uses the power of the spindle to build the world of Khatti Ugal which she then becomes the queen of and uses that magical power to maintain the island as a means of defiance against those who imprisoned her on the island.
The acknowledgement section of the book makes note of the inspiration and the sources Shannon Chakraborty used for this book and connection she makes with the power of the magical spindle in this book to the real world importance of the spindle and those who have wielded it throughout our history and into the present day.
Everything from socks to sails had to be created by hand, an incredibly laborious process few in our industrialized world can appreciate. And yet this—typically done by women—tends to be overlooked by society and scholarship unless it can be monetized and scaled up, under often oppressive systems whether they be the enslaved women in prehistoric workshops or the abusive sweatshops that dominate the textile industry today.
Acknowledgements
There are also themes that Amina and Lab find themselves having in common – namely them both being mothers and the associated fear of harm coming to their children. In a sense, this means both literal children and in the case of Amina it also means the crew of her ship who she feels a parental responsibility for.
There is a certain thriller like vibe to the story that I appreciate. This is definitely still a historical fantasy novel but like with the first book in the series, this is an adventure story. It is not quite the ship bound adventure of the first book but it still has a similar thrill to it that kept the story a sense of propulsion that I enjoyed.
Concluding Thoughts
I had an okay time with The Tapestry of Fate—Amina al-Sirafi continues to be a character I find intriguing and I enjoyed how the author weaved together a story about magical objects, semi-immortal beings, and a mysterious magical island all while grounding its fantasy in some historical reality. I would have liked to seen more of Amina on the seas being her pirate self with her crew but Queen Lab and an investigative thriller were adequate substitutes for maritime hijinks.
If my memory serves me correctly, I don’t think I expected a sequel to The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi when I read that book but I am glad we got another book in this world. That said, I would love for Shannon Chakraborty to put her considerable talents into a new series or standalone novel set in a new world with a new set of characters. In any case, I will be reading more of Shannon’s writing in the future, whatever form it takes.
That is all from me, see y’all in the next one.
P.S – While doing some research for this review, I came across a podcast episode on the Ottoman History podcast that features a roundtable discussion with Shannon Chakraborty and some academics. The essays that were talked about in that book pertain to the first book in the Amina al-Sirafi series (spoiler warning!) and is very interesting reading, especially the essay by Shireen Hamza, titled Transformation.
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