Book Recommendation: ‘The City of Brass’ by S.A. Chakraborty, read by Soneela Nankani

recommended by GRACE JOHNSON, Peninsula Pulse assistant editor

When I listened to the audiobook for The City of Brass the first time a few years ago, I fell in love – not only with the story, but with the performance of narrator Soneela Nankani.

When it comes to audiobooks, I’m fairly picky about narrators. The cadence, inflection and speed at which they read are all very important to me. Nankani has been one of my favorite audiobook narrators since then, so I’ve gone as far as seeing what else she has done and listening to it, even if the book wasn’t something I had been interested in.

In this story, Nahri is a con woman of unsurpassed talent on the streets of 18th-century Cairo. She has never believed in magic, but when she accidentally summons an equally sly, darkly mysterious jinni warrior to her side during one of her cons, she’s forced to accept that the magical world she thought existed only in childhood stories is real.

The City of Brass is the first book in the Daevabad Trilogy. I loved the first one so much that I wanted to own and continue the story in a physical copy, but I couldn’t let go of Nankani. So, I ended up listening to the audio for the subsequent books while reading along.