Rebel of the Sands

If you decided to throw a mix of ingredients in a blender, such as the Wild West, mythology & magic, and the key spark needed that's found in our most predominately popular heroines in the YA genre, you would find yourself with the deliciousness that is Rebel of the Sands before you. Amani is a strong, and very feisty, female protagonist that will rouse readers to her side, whether young or old, or female or male. Amani's voice will resonate within you the wander lust that she so desperately suffers from, because I can definitely attest to that. From the small town of Dustwalk, Amani is a young girl who knows her away around a gun and some tough crowds. We first see her entering a shooting contest in the pistol Pit in Deadshot under the guise of a boy. Like with history, women are frowned upon when they partake in male-dominated spheres of life in Amani's world. Her dream is to go to Izman and find her aunt. In the midst of the contest, she meets a foreigner that goes by the name of Jin, who we later found out is a wanted criminal who the Gallan Army is searching for. The place gets burned down which sets our 2 characters down a whirlwind of action packed fight scenes, identitity revelations, and you guessed it, some romance as well. Alwyn Hamilton pens her story with great purpose. She mixes real life elements with mythological fantasies. The Buraqi, the Demdji, the Roc, and the Djinn are what drive our story forward. Hamilton moves all her pieces in her book like a fantastic chess player, easily progressing each piece, each element and character coexisting, blending it all until our climactic end. What I found most refreshing was the budding romance between Amani and Jin, it felt organic and never forced. Many authors feel like their protagnist have to have a full blown relationship, when that's definitely not the case. Amani is a tough girl and doesn't succumb to her feminine wiles so easily, and Jin isn't completely smitten from the first moment he laid eyes on her. While he's intrigued by her tenacity, he is after all cautious because of his criminal status. And Amani sees Jin as her ticket out of Dustwalk, that urge to be with him was stronger in that regard that it was about romantic feelings. True intimacy never transpired between the two, and for once I was greatful for that. It felt true both to the world that Hamilton built, and to the characters she so brilliantly created. Rebel of the Sands is a book that blends the sparks of revolution, gender equality, mythology, and one's true identity which produces a rare jewel of a book. Readers should go out and buy Alwyn Hamilton's book if they are intrigued with any of the elements I've mentioned above. Happy Reading!

Alwyn Hamilton’s debut Rebel of the Sands was quite the fantastical read! It’s filled with excitement, adventure, romance, magic, mythology, and lots of good action too! It’s got all you need for an enjoyable read! I am definitely going to be looking forward to more of this series. Amani is a sixteen year old girl, in a world where women have no rights. Odd to think this is a fantasy world! She disguises herself as a boy and enters a shooting contest in hopes to win enough money to escape a life where she’ll be forced to marry her uncle, because no one else would want her. Incest, apparently, wasn’t an issue in this time either. Which is a whole other topic for a different day! Unfortunately, the competition was rigged and she was forced to go home empty-handed and far poorer than she began. She soon meets a wanted man named Jin and after helping him escape, decides to join him on his journey because she longs for escape that much. Her plans are to find her mother’s sister and hope that life with an unknown aunt is better than what she currently has. And this is where the adventure truly begins! The desert is a dangerous place filled with monsters. Night is the worse time to travel and naturally, a lot of traveling happens on Amani’s part at this time. Amani and Jin have their rough go of things but when they finally decide to trust one another, things start to go a little more smoothly for them. But not by much, for there are soldiers tracking them and let’s just say the outcome won’t be pretty if they get caught. There’s a lot of history and myth to this story. At times, I found it a little hard to keep up because there were so many names being dropped left and right. It didn’t help that this unknown Sultan has so many children, both legitimate and not and having too many wives and having children just everywhere! It made it a mite hard to figure out who’s related and not. But for the most part, I had the general idea and that was enough. While this caused me a little bit of a bump in the road of reading, it wasn’t enough to fully detract from my enjoyment. Mythology wise, I really enjoyed learning about the Djinn in this new way. Some traits I’ve seen from previous books show up as well, but there’s always something new to learn and I love that authors make creatures and characters their own! That’s why I never tire of vampire reads, because I see them all as totally different and individual reads! I think where I was tripped up again, a little, were all the different kinds of Djinn, or other magical beings that were in here. There’s more name dropping, but I tribute the different names to the specific power each magical person has. That’s what I gathered at least. There’s a type name and then character name, so we’re back to a lot of name dropping! I really enjoyed the relationship between Amani and Jin. It’s no surprise that these two start having sparks fly between them. And while it may seem like insta-love, I think it was more of an insta-attraction and then the feelings and love just start to develop along the way. But like with any YA novel, just because there’s early love doesn’t mean there’s going to be all sunshine and rainbows. There are secrets going about! And while I want to say I saw some of them coming, I can’t quite do that. I may have surmised a one or two of the ideas, but I had so many speculations for the characters it was hard to commit to a certain idea! LOL! I really enjoyed the cast of side characters too! Bahi and Shazad were among my favorites! Bahi is a little bit of a romantic, but he’s hilarious. Shazad is your go-to tough girl with an attitude and the kickbutt-ness the back it all up! And these two’s interactions together were pure gold! The feels I had for this book were pretty much all over the place! And that’s what I expect of all my reads pretty much! Going through all those emotions really just proves to me how wonderfully talented the author is! I’m not 100% sure where this series is headed, it’s ending, while satisfying by a lack of cliffhanger, you are left with that little bit of wondering. Wondering, exactly, what’s next for everyone! And with that, only time will tell, as always! Wretched time! If you’re looking for a fantasy to blow you away with its magic, mythology, action, and a wonderful cast of characters, than I highly recommend reading Rebel of the Sands! It was phenomenal! Overall Rating 4.5/5 stars

I really adored this book. I always had a soft spot for stories based on 1001 nights, but this one is amazingly really original. I fell in love with the Blue-eyed Bandit the moment I read the first page and it only became worse and worse the more I read about Amani's story. Then came Jin around, the mysterious foreigner who at the end only became more complicated. There were some really good twists in the plot, most of them more at the end of the story. From chapter 17 the story takes a turn I hadn't foreseen and you get introduced to a bunch of new characters of which Sharzad is definitely one of my favs. I really hope the second book will be released soon, cause I can't wait to read how this series continues.

The beautiful author Jay E.Tria has written this beautiful book and as the name suggests it clearly defines and carries a story about a girl named Jill who is much awaited to overcome the emotions after her 7year relationship broke into pieces. And things took into turmoil because the love of her life named as kim was the lead guitarist in the same band where she performed as a vocalist. She always had to face him and situations were always awkard but much thanks to the other band members who took things other way to make the circumstances and results normal. Despite her struggle to forget her relationship its pretty much hard for her to move on with her feelings still alive for kim. The story is simple yet the characters have been placed into perfect broadlines which helps the reader to relate the situations with ease. The story is balanced and the author has played quite well with the plottings without making any fuss with extra overflowing emotions and tears all the way long. Breakups do hurt but the strength to move on is the key to lead a happy and a new life. This is how things turn the table when Jill meets her celebrity friend Shinta who from the start of the story seems to be awed away with looks, his attraction and care towards Jill too easily gets distracted when Shinta is around and the chemistry between them is beautiful . Now the question arises will Jill be able to overcome her feelings towards Kim? With whom Jill will end up with? In order to get the answers I would highly recommend my fellow book readers to go ahead and read this contemporary romance. And lastly i would love to flaunt about the author who turns a prose into a beautiful lyrics in particular plots to make the storyline more distinctive and go with the flow. Her immense capability to capture the moments and knock the words into a sharp and definative plot makes the story crystal clear and at the same time the book to be a page turner.

Why did I wait so long to read this? I want to kick myself now, because seriously this book was amazing. It was the cover that drew me in initially (this book deserves some serious cover appreciation because have you seen it?? Gorgeous!) and then the blurb sealed the deal – desert setting, magic, a mysterious ally, a fearless rebellion? Hell yeah! Sign me up! Despite my excitement, it's taken me over a year to get to this on my TBR pile and I regret that bitterly now. First of all, the writing is just magical. The author draws you in to this spectacular world that she's created with such wonderful detail woven with the myths and legends of the land. It was bewitching. I absolutely loved the desert setting and the way the magical immortal creatures like Djinni are a very real part of their culture. The powers that the Demdji have (Demdji are children born of Djinn and mortal women) were so imaginative, I can't wait to see more of them in the next book! Possibly the thing I loved most about this book was Amani. Strong, independent, brave female MC’s are something I am always on the lookout for, because so many YA books hint that their MC is going to be like this, only for you to read her story and for her to become helpless or completely blinded by love (I'll get to the romance in Rebel next!). But Amani never lost her way, she was kick-ass from the beginning and I loved her right up until the very end. Amani wasn't the only great character in Rebel, in fact the book was filled with them. Some we only meet briefly but they leave such an impression on you nonetheless (like Amani’s childhood friend, Tamid. I hope we get to see more of him!). I also loved that Amani wasn't the only strong female in the story, and that there was no unnecessary jealousy between the girls – in fact, I think we're seeing the start of some really solid friendships. This brings me on to the romance, and Jin. Ah, Jin. I did love him. Right from the beginning when were introduced to him as ‘The Eastern Snake’ I loved his charm and his witty banter. I'm always a bit of a sucker for a guy with a quick sense of humour. He and Amani made a great team, and he never underestimated her or tried to restrain her, he didn't treat her like a damsel who needed saving – he treated her like an equal, a partner. Their relationship developed so much over the course of the book (there's no insta-love here! Hallelujah!) and they had fantastic chemistry together, in fact their first kiss is one my favourite first kisses from a book, you can practically feel the passion coming off the page. There wasn't anything I didn't love about this book and I can't wait to continue with the series and find out what's next for Amani, Jin and the rebels. If you haven't read this yet then don't make the mistake I did, go and start it now, you're going to love it!

That book was sooooo good ! Maybe a bit slow at the beginning but you have to get going if you want to see the best of it ! It keeps getting better and better and I cannot wait to read the next one

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