"The Tapestry of Fate" by Shannon Chakraborty

I am delighted to report that the book 2 in one of the series I am most excited about these days is excellent. Truly a masterpiece of a story. My only complaint is that it ends on a hell of a cliffhanger. The plot of this book wraps up excellently, but the hook for book 3 had me screaming with desperation.

Following the events of book 1, Amina is off to find and destroy a second magical artifact. That goes pretty smoothly, and serves as little more than a prologue; she heads back to Oman to enjoy some quality family time with her mother, her brother & his family, and a fast-growing Marjana. Dalila is hanging out as well, being her usually grumpy self. All too soon, she gets sent off to find her next artifact: a spindle that can rewrite fates. It’s on an island that appears and disappears in the Persian Gulf, where sailors get wrecked and no one escapes from. Except someone did, and has been talking about his adventures in taverns up and down the Persian Gulf - in company with none other than Raksh.

Without going into spoilers, we get less seafaring than in book 1, less action, more intrigue. Majed, Tinbu, and Jamal don’t have huge parts in this book, and we get so little of Payasam, the Best Cat in the World, it’s borderline criminal. This is Amina and Delila’s show. And that’s where the heart of the book is, because the two of them are in conflict. Delila has always been prickly, domineering, and secretive. Amina has always been overbearing and overprotective. Both are extremely stubborn. Those are two personalities that, with the wrong pressure applied, will clash, and that happens here in a way that’s both heartbreaking and frustrating to read through and perfectly true to the characters of both.

There’s a lot about Amina’s relationship with Marjana. As I said, she’s getting older, and is both pushing against Mom’s overprotectiveness and asking questions about her father … and the things she can sometimes sense that no one else seems to. Very interested to see where their relationship goes in book 3.

Last point I want to mention: I’m not certain that Amina is the main character of this story. She’s a main character, sure, and she’s the protagonist, but I’m not at all convinced she’s the main character. There’s a thing in stories - I hesitate to call it a flaw or a problem - where the main character is the only one with “real” agency. There’s a reason we refer to self-centered people who don’t see other people as being equally important as having “main character syndrome,” and it would make for a really weird story for Bilbo & company to reach the Lonely Mountain only to discover that another group had started their own quest and Smaug was slain while they had been en route. I can’t give any details, but the way that other characters in the book take action without Amina knowing the actions, their motivations, or even who they are before the impacts of their actions are known, was super interesting to read. Dalila is one of them, thanks to the conflict between them, but Chakraborty also reminds us that, in the context of this book, those one might dismiss as NPCs are also people with their own agency and motivations.

This series is freaking awesome. Book 2 comes out on 12 May. I am desperate for book 3.