Admittedly not perfect—the mystery was a bit of a letdown, and the middle dragged—but a plucky protagonist(with fabulous taste in suits); a lived-in world that combined so many elements of steampunk, mythology and history that it was more imaginative than any other fantasy book I’ve read; and a pretty great sapphic romance made this a very enjoyable read. I do wish that this wasn’t sold as a standalone, though. While there’s bits of (admittedly clunky) summarizing of the previous Dead Djinn novellas implemented throughout to make this a sufficient introduction to the series, I couldn’t help but wonder if reading the other installments would flesh out the characters and world more. There seemed to be a bit of context I missed.

I’ll definitely check out the previous installments, and more of this author. Fatma is such a badass.