Hafsah Faizal’s debut is rooted in Arabian mythology and built with the particular ambition of a writer who has been planning this world for years. Arawiya is a land where magic has been dying — the Five Caliphates have been draining of life, the forests darkening, the crops failing — and the book opens with that decay as a given, a world already half-lost before the story begins.
Zafira is a hunter in a dying caliphate who disguises herself as a man to hunt in the dark forest that would kill any woman who entered it. She is chosen to retrieve a lost magical tome that could restore Arawiya’s magic. Nasir is the prince of a caliphate who kills on his sultan father’s orders — the Prince of Death, feared everywhere — and is sent to ensure the tome never reaches its destination. Their paths converge on the cursed island of Sharr.
The World
Faizal’s Arawiya is built with genuine love and specificity. The cultural details — the food, the dress, the religious practice, the social structures of the different caliphates — feel inhabited rather than researched. The mythology draws from Arabian and Islamic tradition with evident care.
Zafira
The gender-disguise premise is used differently here than in many YA books — Zafira’s disguise is less about surviving in a male space than about being able to do the thing she needs to do at all, and the book explores what it costs her to hide a fundamental part of herself.
Nasir
The prince-who-kills-because-he-has-to is a familiar type, but Faizal’s treatment of his interiority — the way violence has numbed him, the specific texture of his grief — elevates it. His eventual softening toward Zafira is earned rather than convenient.
The Prose
Faizal writes with considerable lushness, and the atmosphere of Sharr — ancient, dark, testing — is rendered with enough sensory detail to feel genuinely immersive.
Why YA Readers Will Love This
For readers who want fantasy rooted in Arabian and Middle Eastern traditions: Arawiya is one of the most fully realised examples of this in YA, and Faizal’s relationship to the source material is evident and respectful.
For readers who love atmospheric fantasy — who want to be inside a world that feels ancient and consequential — Sharr’s cursed landscape delivers that experience.
For readers who enjoy slow-burn romances with genuine distance between the protagonists: the development between Zafira and Nasir is patient in the way the setting demands, and it is more satisfying for that patience.
We Free the Stars concludes the duology.
Published: May 2019 · Genre: YA fantasy · Series: Sands of Arawiya, Book 1
Frequently Asked Questions
What is We Hunt the Flame about? Zafira, a hunter in a dying caliphate who disguises herself as a man to hunt in the dark forest, is chosen to retrieve a lost magical tome that could restore Arawiya’s dying magic. Nasir, the feared Prince of Death, is sent to ensure the tome never reaches its destination. Their paths converge on the cursed island of Sharr. Arawiya is ‘a land where magic has been dying — the Five Caliphates draining of life, the forests darkening, the crops failing.’
What mythological and cultural traditions does We Hunt the Flame draw on? Faizal’s Arawiya is described as ‘built with genuine love and specificity — the cultural details, the food, the dress, the religious practice, the social structures of the different caliphates, feel inhabited rather than researched.’ The mythology ‘draws from Arabian and Islamic tradition with evident care.’ The review recommends it for readers who want ‘fantasy rooted in Arabian and Middle Eastern traditions — Arawiya is one of the most fully realised examples of this in YA.’
How is Zafira’s gender disguise used differently in We Hunt the Flame? The review notes the premise ‘is used differently here than in many YA books — Zafira’s disguise is less about surviving in a male space than about being able to do the thing she needs to do at all, and the book explores what it costs her to hide a fundamental part of herself.’ This specificity is credited as elevating the device beyond conventional usage.
How does Nasir work as a love interest in We Hunt the Flame? The prince-who-kills-because-he-has-to is acknowledged as ‘a familiar type,’ but ‘Faizal’s treatment of his interiority — the way violence has numbed him, the specific texture of his grief — elevates it.’ His eventual softening toward Zafira ‘is earned rather than convenient.’ The development between them is described as ‘patient in the way the setting demands, and more satisfying for that patience.’
What atmosphere does We Hunt the Flame create? The review says ‘Faizal writes with considerable lushness, and the atmosphere of Sharr — ancient, dark, testing — is rendered with enough sensory detail to feel genuinely immersive.’ For readers who love ‘atmospheric fantasy — who want to be inside a world that feels ancient and consequential — Sharr’s cursed landscape delivers that experience.’ We Free the Stars concludes the duology.
Further Reading from Authoritative Sources
- Hafsah Faizal — Wikipedia’s Hafsah Faizal article provides biographical and bibliographical context for the author, helping readers understand We Hunt the Flame within her debut achievement and her approach to Arabian-inspired world-building.
- Arabian and Islamic tradition — Wikipedia’s Arabian mythology article contextualises the mythological tradition that Faizal draws on, helping readers understand the depth and specificity of the source material behind Arawiya’s world-building.
