You don’t have too much longer to wait for the sequel to Shannon Chakraborty’s bestselling The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi, THE TAPESTRY OF FATE

And Beth and Nils were super lucky and very excited for the opportunity to read an early copy! Having read all of Chakraborty’s previous titles together, there weren’t about to make any exceptions for this long awaited sequel!

Before we find out what they thought, here’s more about The Tapestry of Fate:

THE EPIC, ACTION-PACKED SEQUEL TO THE ADVENTURES OF AMINA AL-SIRAFI FROM SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLING AUTHOR SHANNON CHAKRABORTY

Set sail into the second adventure of Amina al-Sirafi as her quest to track down magical artifacts brings her to the island lair of a sorceress whose woven enchantments are impossible to flee…

Amina al-Sirafi thinks she’s struck gold. Tasked with hunting down magical artifacts for the council of immortal peris, she can savour the occasional adventure on the high seas with her cherished criminal companions while still returning home to raise her beloved daughter.

But when Raksh, the spirit of discord with whom she is reluctantly wed, provokes the council’s wrath, Amina is charged with a seemingly impossible quest: steal a spindle capable of rewriting fate from a mysterious sorceress on an island no one can escape.

Forced to leave her daughter, Amina finds her mission almost immediately thrown into peril. But deadly storms, an erratic poison mistress, and old enemies are the least of her worries. For the peris’ story is unravelling, hinting at a far deadlier game whose rules Amina must swiftly puzzle out. A game that sets her against an adversary more cunning and powerful than she has ever faced.

A game that not everyone on her crew wants her to win.

The Tapestry of Fate is due for publication on 21st May 2026 – you can pre-order your copy on Bookshop.org

Now that you’ve both finally dived into the sequel, how easy was it to get back into the story? 

Beth: I really struggled, but then I always do with sequels because my memory is awful. I’m a big fan of books that have a ‘what happened last time’ note at the start that readers can choose whether they need to read or not. I always need a reminder, but I hate how unnatural it reads when an author incorporates it into the narrative. Unfortunately, Chakraborty does neither here, so I felt I was scrambling a little to recall some of the crew members and the plot points of the first book.

Nils: I also appreciate when authors include a little summary of the previous book, it’s so helpful to remember key events or characters. But I think I was fine with the beginning of Tapestry of Fate because it’s another standalone story and the more you read the more you remember about Amina and her crew.

Beth: I agree Nils, it turns out you don’t really need to know too much from the first book? It quickly became less of an issue for me as Chakraborty’s storytelling whisked me away. The book opens with a very exciting adventure so it’s easy enough to just pick everything up as you go along. I certainly didn’t feel hampered in understanding this story by my failing to remember elements of the first.

Nils: Like Beth, I was swept away by Chakraborty’s writing too. She has this way of pulling me into a story every time I read her books. This sequel opens with Amina living a quiet domestic life with her family, cooking, embroidering, enjoying peaceful evenings, that is until the Peris set her on another task of retrieving a magical artefact, and what follows from there is a conflict between Amina wanting to keep her family safe whilst she’s away, her brother wanting to build a life for himself and her daughter Marjana not wanting Amina to go and giving her some well overdue answers about her father. I was immediately invested, caught between being frustrated at Amina but also sympathising. I know you were frustrated too, weren’t you Beth? 

Beth: I was, yes! I was frustrated by how Amina was treating her family, she expected so much trust from them whilst not really giving them anything to build that trust upon. She really underestimated them too, just assuming they wouldn’t be able to figure out that something out of the ordinary was going on in Amina’s life. As frustrating as it is when a character you love makes bad choices, I really appreciate the way Chakraborty gives us such a messy, imperfect protagonist who flies against the usual mature woman wise from life experiences model.

Were there any characters you were particularly excited to see again?

Beth: Definitely Dalila, she was a firm favourite the first time round, and I loved picturing her in Amina’s basement concocting who knew what in her den whilst the family above whispered and gossiped about her. She held quite a prominent role in this story and I loved learning more about her and getting that sense of being closer to her as a result.

Nils: I’m with you Beth, Dalila is a firm favourite of mine too and I loved seeing her as more of a pivotal character in this, even though her story arc worried me immensely! There’s two sides to Dalila, the cold and calculated Mistress of Poisons who is not to be trifled with and the vulnerable woman who lived through a tragic past. I’m glad we got to see her character shine more. 

Beth: That’s what I loved too, seeing the more vulnerable side of her. Chakraborty really put her characters through the emotional wringer this time!

Nils: She really does!

I also enjoyed the return of Tinbu and Majed who both brought a touch of light comedy to the crew, as well as being very useful for navigating and maintaining their ship, Marawati.

Oh and how could I forget Raksh!! You can’t not love the chaos and drama he brings to each scene! 

Beth: Tinbu was one of my favourites from the first book. I love his brand of chaotic personality, and his cat! 

And any new characters you enjoyed meeting?

Beth: Hands down my favourite new character was Ornith the librarian! Although in all honesty, I’m not sure how much I loved her, or her job – cataloging and working out the purposes of various artefacts and historical items! 

Nils: I loved Ornith, the librarian too. In the fabled city we met her, she seemed to be the only person who was even remotely trustworthy and I think she genuinely wanted to help Amina.

Beth: That’s a good point actually, I think another reason why I liked her so much was that she was a bubble of authenticity in an otherwise mad world!

Nils: Although I can’t say much about Queen Lab, I found her character so well crafted and I particularly loved the interludes that tell of her heritage and backstory. Those were written in such a darker tragic tone, I found each interlude so fascinating. 

Beth: Yes we loved following those interludes, they were such a clever addition!

As with all Chakraborty’s adventures, stories from the Middle East play an important role in The Tapestry of Fate. Did you have a favourite?

Beth: There is such a wealth of history and mythology from the coasts of the Indian Ocean, and the ways in which Chakraborty brings them to life are wondrous. I’m not sure where Chakraborty’s lines of inspiration and invention were always drawn, but there are certainly plenty of stories of sorcerous temptresses who capture unwitting souls on their magical islands, and I loved the clever way in which Chakraborty explored and deconstructed this myth. 

Nils: I agree with you Beth, the deconstructed myths were fantastic, especially how they portrayed females as not just seductresses and witches but as people who were wronged, who had everything taken from them, who faced injustice after injustice and just wanted to fight back. 

I also loved that Chakraborty portrayed how important embroidery and craftsmanship was and still is in the Middle Eastern and in India. It really highlighted the work that went into making garments and tapestries, how young girls would be taught to use spindles, and their historical significance to those cultures. 

Beth: Again, that’s an excellent point Nils. Weaving and embroidery, all textile crafts, are key elements of the history of women; they are extremely important aspects of human history that haven’t had nearly the research and representation they deserve because they’re jobs associated with women. There’s a melancholy that echoes through the story for weaving skills lost through wars and culture erasure that is easy to empathise with.

If you could sail on the Marawati with Amina, where would you go and why?

Beth: Honestly? Anywhere. It would be an opportunity to experience the past so I’d be happy tagging along on any of her adventures, even just a mundane shipment run to hold up the legit side of her business. Or, if you were really twisting my arm, I’d love to visit Jamal in Baghdad and, similarly to Ornith the librarian, explore his treasures and his stories!

Nils: I don’t think I’d last long on one of Amina’s adventures 🤣they always seem to head into tremendous danger! Yet I’d love a crossover and if it’s possible to sail to Daevabad and the magical city for myself! Coming with me Beth?

Beth: Omgosh YES! We need Amina to end up in Daevabad and witness the utter chaos that would ensue! 

Favourite Quotes

Nils: Chakraborty gives us some powerful insights and these two quotes really stayed with me. 

“The men were killed and the women and children enslaved.

There are very few phrases both duller and more horrific. Because it is a fate so frequent to the pages of history, that unparalleled distance which separates our lives from the back-trodden past. that it becomes almost commonplace. We shudder and move on, marking the fates of the monarchs and kingdoms affected. Perhaps a famous scholar will bear mention, the strategies of generals and hand-wringing of politicians. They will step into the record, they will often escape. It will be those who cannot flee, whether by lack of means or because they have nowhere to go, who are left behind.”

“We tell a great many tales of magical palaces, don’t we? Lost kingdoms and beautiful royals waiting for an exiled prince, a shipwrecked sailor, a betrayed merchant. They are nearly as numerous as our stories of tricksters and spirits. Perhaps it is no great mystery why: the majority of us laboring day in and day out for an unsympathetic overseer, balancing our duties to family, to the children who need tending and feeding in our vast merciless cities with our equally merciless if not inept tyrants lording over all, ruining lives with a stamp of their seal. Who wouldn’t want to wander the street of the booksellers, to linger when the troupes of puppeteers come calling? To escape, to dream… even just for a little bit?”

Beth: There were quite a lot of lines we sent each other!

Whatever we were – I was – craved more. I was newly born into this world and like any infant, I was a constant well of hunger. You were softly calling to me… to curl up in the ashes and let death take us, vengeance obtained.

But oh, how we hungered.

‘I wondered about the people who had crafted them, what lands they had come from, how they had used these things. What stories did these stone tablets tell? Did these languages still exist? Had these bones been used to predict the fate of a city long gone? It left me feeling small, insignificant. God’s creation, it is just so vast; our own civilisation and all its glory and blood but a leaf resting upon a vast lake of humanity that lived and died before records were even taken.

Overall Thoughts 

Nils: The Tapestry of Fate by Shannon Chakraborty was a highly anticipated sequel for me and it did not disappoint. We once again set sail with Amina into a perilous quest across the Persian Gulf to find a fabled island and retrieve a magical artefact of disastrous power and this story arc just swept me away entirely. In doing so we enter a tale of myth, the testing of friendships and a rather devastating shipwreck. There’s themes of motherhood, injustices, the cost of violence and loss. There’s even special attention paid to the cultural significance of embroidery and the role of stories in shaping myths. Chakraborty weaves a richly depicted historical world and a strong female character to lead us through some thrilling adventures. Every page of this book was a sheer delight. 

Beth: Shannon Chakraborty has whisked us away on yet another fantastical adventure! The Tapestry of Fate was most certainly a worthy sequel to The Adventures of Amina, matching that first book in rollicking adventures, mysticism, mythical figures and creatures, and cunning adversaries. I was particularly impressed that Chakraborty continues her representation of motherhood and women living full lives in more mature years, but finding new perspectives to do so this time round, and keeping her story still relevant as a result. The way in which Chakraborty builds the novel through threads of stories, beautifully weaving them into an intricate story itself about a tapestry and threads of fate was seamless and genius. We know there’s something big in store for Amina on her next adventure, so I cannot wait for the next instalment!

The Tapestry of Fate is due for publication on 21st May 2026 – you can pre-order your copy on Bookshop.org