The Kingdom Over the Sea
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Get 3 months for £0.99/mo
The Kingdom Over the Sea
Buy Now for £12.99
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Narrated by:
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Aysha Kala
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By:
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Zohra Nabi
About this listen
A breathtaking adventure for fans of Kiran Millwood Hargrave, Sophie Anderson and Eva Ibbotson – perfect for intrepid young explorers age 9+!
My own Yara, if you are reading this, then something terrible has happened, and you are on your own. To return to the city of Zehaira, you must read out the words on the back of this letter . . . Good luck, my brave girl.
When Yara’s mother passes away, she leaves behind a letter and a strange set of instructions. Yara must travel from the home she has always known to a place that is not on any map – Zehaira, a world of sorcerers, alchemists and simmering magic. But Zehaira is not the land it used to be. The practice of magic has been outlawed, the Sultan’s alchemists are plotting a sinister scheme – and the answers Yara is searching for seem to be out of reach.
Yara must summon all of her courage to discover the truth about her mother’s past and her own identity . . . and to find her place in this magical new world.
©2023 Zohra Nabi (P)2023 Simon & Schuster UKListeners also enjoyed...
Critic reviews
"Enchanting, immersive and beautifully imagined. Once I’d finished, I couldn’t stop dreaming of this magnificent magical world." (A.F. Steadman, author of Skandar and the Unicorn Thief)
Fantasy you can believe
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Fabulous magical story
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Wonderful story
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Worth a read!
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So says one of the main characters in chapter 27 and I think this just about sums up the entire book!
I was so excited for this book, but as there are some serious cultural sensitivity issues that will completely put off Muslim audiences (the very audience the book references so much) I would recommend the book is refined further to the publisher. I wouldn’t recommend this book unfortunately.
To be fair the author writes well, and has literary skill at times, but the overall concept didn’t flow as well as I hoped and perhaps it was the narrators annoying voice, but midway through this book I was just waiting for it to end. It came across like trying to be a ‘Muslim Elsa finds her powers and is mentored by Dumbledore and Grindelwald dressed as women’.
Unfortunately I just couldn’t get into this book no matter how much I tried, and it really dragged on.
Maybe it’s the fact that all the characters have Muslim/Islamic Arabic names, but don’t practice a shred of Islam or have anything Muslim about them - the faith that gave birth to so much culture referenced in this book was stripped out of this story. Doesn’t seem authentic enough.
Or maybe I felt that the author was on the edge of pushing a Lesbian love story on us in the form of the two female sorcerers who supposedly wanted to be ‘more than friends’ or something along those lines it said. Cliche and felt like a rip off from the HP series.
Other things that didn’t make sense: For example the character wears shalwar kameez, but apparently grew up in London and thinks she is from Iraq?! As a Londoner I can assure you someone would’ve schooled her from very early on!
The character also talks about her mother making ‘sambusak’ (East African name) but not ‘samosa’ as a South Asian mother who wears shalwar kameez actually would call it, Again not authentic. Such a mishmash of confused Muslim cultures.
Make it make sense someone.
Then there was the posh gay sounding goat that kept repeating the protagonist’s name all the time. Such an annoying droney goat voice, sigh. Narrators fault not the authors.
But it is highlighly offensive to someone of a South Asian background to present a Djinn in the form of a goat. This is literally satanic for South Asians. My ancestors would be rolling in their grave!!
I don’t know why the publisher and author didn’t get this kind of feedback during the process? Don’t they have sensitivity readers?
It’s why it’s not authentic at all for me and feels like an Anglo rip off of Muslim culture. Sorry not sorry. Please improve, the publisher clearly has no clue.
Not authentic
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