Mazen’s initial disguise, dressing as a commoner, is replaced by an even more devious one: High Prince Omar gives Mazen a relic that changes Mazen into Omar’s body double.

She must also hide the identity of her bodyguard, for if anyone knew she traveled with a jinn, they’d try to kill him, and she’d likely be executed by the sultan as well. Loulie, as the Midnight Merchant, is secretive about her history. All of them have secrets-and each lie to hide them. And always, there is a story, and within it, hints of a larger truth hidden from the world.Ībdullah uses Loulie, Mazen, and Aisha as the story’s three point of view characters. Jinn kings, necromancers, discarded thieves, and relic hunters are seeded through their adventures. When Loulie is sent by the sultan on a mission for a relic within the treacherous Sandsea, her fate and Mazen’s become more deeply intertwined. While Loulie doesn’t think jinn are evil-unlike the rest of the citizenry-she doesn’t want harm to come to an innocent human.īut Mazen and Loulie’s encounter is part of a much larger plot, unraveled bit by bit throughout the book, until readers can trace it to its source. When she sees Mazen, disguised as a commoner and following a jinn through the marketplace, she realizes he’s enchanted and goes after them.

Loulie and Qadir find and sell relics, making her a legendary merchant in the black market, as buying and selling magic is strictly forbidden by the sultan.īut while Loulie thinks of herself as a pragmatic, practical woman who has avoided forming attachments (for fear of losing those she loves), she also has a tender heart.

The Stardust Thief is the first of a planned trilogy, the tale of Loulie al-Nazari, the Midnight Merchant her enigmatic jinn companion, Qadir tragedy-haunted jinn hunter Aisha and a pair of princes: Omar, the king of the forty thieves and eldest prince, and Mazen, a cloistered younger prince trapped by his royalty, who misses his mother’s stories. “Neither here nor there, but long ago…” begins not just the novel, but each of the tales within, weaving a tapestry of magic and adventure. Though the trappings of Chelsea Abdullah’s debut novel The Stardust Thief will be familiar to readers who grew up on some of the most popular retellings of One Thousand and One Nights, this debut novel launches an entirely new, deep world with the first lines.

The stardust thief