REVIEW: Rebel of the Sands (#1) - Alwyn Hamilton

Title: Rebel of the Sands (#1)
Author: Alwyn Hamilton
Series:  Rebel of the Sands
Publisher: Faber & Faber
Format: Paperback
Pages: 358 Pages
Rating: ⭐⭐

Goodreads Blurb

Mortals rule the desert nation of Miraji, but mythical beasts still roam the wild and remote areas, and rumour has it that somewhere, djinn still perform their magic.  For humans, it’s an unforgiving place, especially if you’re poor, orphaned, or female.

Amani Al’Hiza is all three. She’s a gifted gunslinger with perfect aim, but she can’t shoot her way out of Dustwalk, the back-country town where she’s destined to wind up wed or dead.

Then she meets Jin, a rakish foreigner, in a shooting contest, and sees him as the perfect escape route. But though she’s spent years dreaming of leaving Dustwalk, she never imagined she’d gallop away on mythical horse—or that it would take a foreign fugitive to show her the heart of the desert she thought she knew.

Thoughts

I have had this on my shelf since it was released and have never got round to reading it, so I thought it was high time that I did.

I found this book to be quite slow going, and it was OK, but it just didn't grip me as much as I was hoping it would.

I did enjoy the world-building, and the characters, but I found myself getting lost with the number of characters there were in the book, so when they then showed up again, I would spend 5 minutes wracking my brain trying to figure out where they were in the story previously.

I did find myself liking Amani as a character, she was such a fierce, and strong character, she knew what she wanted and she was going to get it. I also liked Jin as a character, here is someone who does not want to be a leader, and is helping his brother to win the throne.

Overall, it was an OK book, and I may carry on with the series to see what happens to the characters.