Every dawn brings horror to a different family in a land ruled by a killer. Khalid, the eighteen-year-old Caliph of Khorasan, takes a new bride each night only to have her executed at sunrise. So it is a suspicious surprise when sixteen-year-old Shahrzad volunteers to marry Khalid. But she does so with a clever plan to stay alive and exact revenge on the Caliph for the murder of her best friend and countless other girls. Shazi's wit and will, indeed, get her through to the dawn that no others have seen, but with a catch . . . she’s falling in love with the very boy who killed her dearest friend.
She discovers that the murderous boy-king is not all that he seems and neither are the deaths of so many girls. Shazi is determined to uncover the reason for the murders and to break the cycle once and for all.
This book first peaked my interest because it is a topic that came up in one of my favorite shows ever, Leverage. One of the episodes featured a character who had to play the violin for a con and the piece he played was Scheherazade. It was explained in the episode that there was an evil king who would take a new wife each night and kill her at dawn, but Scheherazade was the only one to be kept alive because her stories were so enthralling that the king couldn't take a cliffhanger ending - so he just couldn't kill her. I thought it was a cool idea and then dismissed it.
Enter this book: the exact same premise but with more backstory and adventure...it was like my dream come true! It's like when you make something up in your head, want to buy/invent it, and then finding out it actually exists!! (I love when someone else does all the work for me!) So of course I had to get my hands on a copy asap; thank god for library funding because there it was, sitting on the shelf, waiting for me to take it home for FREE! And this book totally held up to my insane fangirl standards. It was suspenseful, energetic and romantic - what more can you ask for?
I will say I had a difficult time keeping up with the names and customs used in a lot of scenes. I know nothing about middle eastern culture (I don't know where exactly this story takes place) so that was difficult for me to comprehend. After the first 50 pages or so I caught on, but those are also crucial pages because that's when a reader decides whether or not to continue reading the book. Had I not seen that episode of Leverage I might be writing a very different review. *Being the over-excited reader that I am, I completely missed the glossary at the back of the book explaining everything I didn't understand...sometimes I wonder how I make it through the day...
For those who are interested but not sure if they should read it: if you liked Aladdin then I would give this a try. It's a similar backdrop and there is some magic involved. In my opinion the tones of both pieces are comparable, but they do veer off story-wise about halfway through the book so don't go expecting Abu to jump out and say hi.
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