The City of Brass

In 18th century Cairo, a con artist with mysterious powers gets tangled in ancient djinn power struggles

There are so many great things about this book/trilogy. The world building and history is gorgeous, the descriptions make you feel like you are walking through the city streets or sitting down to a royal feast, and the political machinations are so twisty it’s like doing a brain puzzle trying to track who is plotting against whom with a third whom. And that’s not even getting into how well-written the characters are!

So rarely do I find an epic fantasy that has characters, all of whom I just… I just want them to be happy? It’s a problem, of course, because they all have competing goals and loyalties and generally speaking, each one will only really be happy when another dies, but oh well. (My personal favorite is Alizayd, who is a politically naive doofus of a second-in-line-to-the-throne prince. I love him.)