Review: Storm Singer by Sarwat Chadda

Storm Singer
Sarwat Chadda
Rick Riordan Presents
Published April 15, 2025

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About Storm Singer

Skandar and the Unicorn Thief meets One Thousand and One Nights in this thrilling middle grade fantasy from Rick Riordan Presents author Sarwat Chadda about a girl with the magical power to control the elements with her song.

In a land ruled by fierce winged warriors known as eagle garudas, twelve-year-old Nargis is just a poor, lowly human, a Worm who hates the garudas that killed her parents. But even though she can’t fly—and her childhood attempt left her walking with a crutch—she is far from powerless. Nargis is a spirit able to coax small bits of wind, water, fire, and earth to do her bidding through song…well, sometimes.

When Nargis loses control of her power in a high-stakes kite fight, she is exiled. Cast into the desert, she discovers Mistral, an injured boy who turns out to be an eagle garuda, the prince of her enemies! He’s on a mission to take back his throne from a terrible vulture garuda. In spite of their mutual distrust, the two have no choice but to forge an unlikely alliance if they want to escape the desert alive.

And as Nargis and Mistral battle dangerous assassins, befriend crafty sky pirates, and sneak into the mysterious sky castle of Alamut, Nargis discovers she carries a family secret, one that could bring Monsoon’s rains back to the desert, but only if she’s willing to risk her life in the bargain…

My Review

This book covers so much ground in its 368 pages! We meet Nargis, a Spirit Singer, who can speak to spirits such as wind and fire and ask them for their help. She is still learning her craft and makes many mistakes along the way. The discovery of a wounded stranger sets Nargis off on a somewhat unwilling quest to save her village. This proves challenging for her as an old injury that didn’t heal properly makes it difficult for her to walk without a crutch.

I enjoyed the banter between Nargis and Mistral, the garuda she agrees to help. They have very different backgrounds and beliefs about one another’s culture, so they frequently clash over those ideas or prejudices. The longer they travel together, though, the more they come to respect and trust one another.

At one point, they team up with twin sisters who ride a giant owl. Those girls added some energy and humor to the scenes in which they appeared, too. It also further showed what a diverse world Nargis lived in, and how isolated the communities had become from one another.

Storm Singer was an engaging read. I think it’s a standalone, too, which I love to see in fantasy. It’s nice to have some books where we can enjoy a complete story arc all in one book, especially for people like me who struggle to keep up with a series or remember all the relevant plot points between books. Ha!

Content Notes

Recommended for Ages 8 to 12.

Profanity/Crude Language Content
None.

Romance/Sexual Content
None.

Spiritual Content
Some characters can see and interact with spirits of the earth, wind, water, and fire. Some characters are based on or inspired by Hindu mythology.

Violent Content
Situations of peril. Nargis is present when her parents are murdered. She hears what happened, but she can’t see anything. Some scenes describe battles between characters. Descriptions of how a snake and other predator eat their prey are a little graphic. Very brief, though.

Drug Content
A man hides a sleep-inducing substance in a bowl of soup to subdue enemies and escape from them.

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