Backlist Shelf Control: The City of Brass by S.A. Chakraborty

Backlist Shelf Control is a weekly feature hosted by The Reading Faery which is dedicated to sharing backlist books that have been on your TBR for too long. Every Friday, you talk about a backlist book (any book published the previous year or earlier) that you're excited to read and why you want to read it. If you participate, don't forget to comment on my post and share your links so I can check out your posts!

The City of Brass (The Daevabad Trilogy #1)
by S.A. Chakraborty
Genre: Fantasy, Historical
Publication date: November 14, 2017
Publisher: Harper Voyager

Synopsis:

Nahri has never believed in magic. Certainly, she has power; on the streets of 18th century Cairo, she’s a con woman of unsurpassed talent. But she knows better than anyone that the trade she uses to get by—palm readings, zars, healings—are all tricks, sleights of hand, learned skills; a means to the delightful end of swindling Ottoman nobles.

But when Nahri accidentally summons an equally sly, darkly mysterious djinn warrior to her side during one of her cons, she’s forced to accept that the magical world she thought only existed in childhood stories is real. For the warrior tells her a new tale: across hot, windswept sands teeming with creatures of fire, and rivers where the mythical marid sleep; past ruins of once-magnificent human metropolises, and mountains where the circling hawks are not what they seem, lies Daevabad, the legendary city of brass, a city to which Nahri is irrevocably bound.

In that city, behind gilded brass walls laced with enchantments, behind the six gates of the six djinn tribes, old resentments are simmering. And when Nahri decides to enter this world, she learns that true power is fierce and brutal. That magic cannot shield her from the dangerous web of court politics. That even the cleverest of schemes can have deadly consequences.

After all, there is a reason they say be careful what you wish for...

Why I want to read it:
One of my bookish goals this year is to read more diversely. All I really needed to know was that this book is own voices Muslim fantasy. Of course, it's a plus that it sounds utterly enchanting and therefore has been on my TBR for years. I should also note that I tried to listen to this as an audiobook, and failed spectacularly. It only made me more intrigued about the book, but the world was so intricate and I listen to book so rarely that I managed to forget the details of the world-building between each time I listened. So I got the ebook instead, and I really, really want to read it, because it's such an interesting world.

Let's chat! What backlist books have been on your TBR for way too long? Let me know in the comments!