Hey all, Sam here.
Am I back with another review for a book that I read more than a year ago? Yes, that is absolutely true. Actually, it’s been quite a bit more than a year, if I’m being honest. According to Goodreads, I read this book back in May 2020…which means I’ve been able to review this book for two and a half years, which is honestly a bit ridiculous. It actually probably even means that I’m due for a re-read, and that is especially true considering that I bought the sequel and have not yet read it.
I’m working on doing better and being better. Both personally and in a somewhat more professional realm with all the Free State of Geek stuff. I guess I’ll take the fact that I’ve been able to get a post up every day this month so far as progress.
All right, let’s jump into whatever semblance of a review I can manage for today’s book.
Protecting her identity means life or death in this immersive epic fantasy inspired by the Mughal Empire.
In a different life, under a different name, Razia Khan was raised to be the Crown Prince of Nizam, the most powerful kingdom in Daryastan. Born with the soul of a woman, she ran away at a young age to escape her father’s hatred and live life true to herself.
Amongst the hijras of Bikampur, Razia finds sisterhood and discovers a new purpose in life. By day she’s one of her dera’s finest dancers, and by night its most profitable thief. But when her latest target leads her to cross paths with Arjun Agnivansha, Prince of Bikampur, it is she who has something stolen.
An immediate connection with the prince changes Razia’s life forever, and she finds herself embroiled in a dangerous political war. The stakes are greater than any heist she’s ever performed. When the battle brings her face to face with her father, Razia has the chance to reclaim everything she lost…and save her prince.
My Thoughts:
Rating: 4 stars
I know that it’s been a couple years, but I remember enjoying this book. I thought Razia was an interesting character, and definitely the sort of character I’d like to see more of in my fantasy and sci-fi tales. If we have worlds with magic and interdimensional spacecraft and whatnot, then certainly we have worlds where characters of all sorts of gender and sexual identities exist and live amongst others of society, and honestly there should absolutely be areas of the realms, worlds, planets, systems, whatever, where they are accepted and enjoy a good life.
So Razia was born and raised to be the Crown Prince of Nizam, but has always felt that she is a woman. The fact that she is able to get away from a life that couldn’t or wouldn’t recognize her for the awesome person she is, well, I’m glad she was able to get away and forge a new life for herself, and a profitable one at that.
Of course, seeing that means that naturally the story has to have her cross paths with someone who will lead to her wading back into the political wars and turmoil of the life she left behind.
From what I remember, I believe I liked Arjun, Prince of Bikampur, as well. And I thought their connection made for interesting moments. Also, I’m pretty sure the magical creatures and all of that were pretty fascinating too. The worldbuilding was pretty good too, and I like seeing more stories that don’t feature fantastical realms based on European lore and history and topography. Give me more diversity in my fantasy reads, thank you. Although, I definitely need to give this book a reread before I could speak more in-depth on certain aspects of the characters and plot.
But I will say that having Razia come face-to-face with her father, well that was definitely a moment that was needed and deserved. You know having to face someone from her old life, someone who didn’t recognize her value and greatness because they wanted to force her to be someone she wasn’t.
I definitely would like to re-read this, so I could pick up Gifting Fire, the sequel.
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You can pick up your own copy of Stealing Thunder from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Books-a-million, Book Depository, or your local indie bookstore. Hey, I wrote up the draft of this post back when I was doing the purchase links for y’all. Would you like me to start including those again?
That’s all from me for today. Thank you so much for stopping by, but I’ll be back soon with more geeky content.
Free State of Geek 