I'm Natalie Moore. I fell in love with soap operas when I was just five years old, and I still

watch them. Their television's longest scripted series and have zero reruns. Now let me tell you,

soap operas aren't just some silly art form. They are significant. In this season of making,

Stories Without End from WBEZ Chicago.

Join me as I share how the genre began, their social impact, and why these stories endure.

Listen, wherever you get your podcast.

From WBEZ Chicago, I'm Greta Johnson, and this is The Nerdat Book Club.

It's just like a regular book club, except sometimes the author stops by.

This month, our book is the rollicking historical fantasy novel, The Adventures of Amina Al-Sarrafi, by Shannon Chakraborty.

Our protagonist is Amina, a former pirate who had settled down to live a quiet life with her mother and daughter.

But when a wealthy older woman makes Amina an offer, she cannot refuse.

She finds herself right back on the treacherous seas with her old crew.

She embarks on a treasure hunt of a lifetime encountering all kinds of creatures and devious characters along the way.

That's all I'm going to say for now, since this is a spoiler-free conversation. Shannon, welcome to Nuredat. Thank you. Thank you for having me. This book is so much fun. I would love to start with the

like one last job trope because, you know, it comes up in stuff like oceans 11 but it's so

much fun to see in like a historical fantasy lady pirate novel yeah i mean that was a part of the

book from the very beginning because i knew i wanted it to be a book that talked about older

characters as we're called um and it felt like so much of fantasy has the stories of the

young things going out, finding themselves, having their adventures. And I wanted to have

something that was, you had all of your, you know, your adventures, your regrets, your terrible

things that you did, retired, and then came back. But really looked at the idea of one less job and what a bit

deeper about talking about what it really does mean to return to something, how your feelings

...