Expected publication: October 6th 2015 by Disney-Hyperion
Source: I received a free copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
Goodreads description: Lo-Melkhiin killed three hundred girls before he came to her village, looking for a wife. When she sees the dust cloud on the horizon she knows he has arrived. She knows he will want the loveliest girl: her sister. She vows she will not let her be next. And so she is taken in her sister's place, and she believes death will soon follow. But back in their village her sister is mourning. Through her pain, she calls upon the desert winds, conjuring a subtle unseen magic, and something besides death stirs the air in it's place. Lo-Melkhiin's court is a dangerous palace filled with pretty things: intricate statues with wretched eyes, exquisite threads to weave the most beautiful garments. She sees everything as if for the last time. But the first sun sets and rises, and she is not dead. Night after night Lo-Melkhiin comes to her, and listens to the stories she tells and day after day she is awoken by the sunrise. Exploring the palace, she begins to unlock years of fear that have tormented and silenced a kingdom. Lo-Melkhiin was not always a cruel ruler. Something went wrong. The words she speaks to him every night are given strange life of their own. She makes things appear. Little things, at first: a dress from home, a vision of her sister. With each tale she spins, her power grows. Soon she dreams of bigger, more terrible magic: power enough to save a king, if she can put an end to the rule of a monster.
This book was marketed as a retelling of A Thousand and One Nights and I was so excited to receive a review copy of it because I have really been in the mood for fantasy and fairytale retellings lately. Based on the Goodreads description, this book intrigued me and sounded like something that I would really love. Unfortunately, while I did still enjoy this book, it did not quite meet my expectations.
The one thing that was probably my biggest issue was the lack of character names. Lo-Melkhiin was just about the only character who had a name! The main character (and the one who is telling the story) is never mentioned by name and it made it difficult to connect with her. Plus it was just plain annoying not knowing what to call her! She also refers to all the secondary characters as my sister’s mother or (the one that really irritated me) my father’s father’s father and so on. Those characters were referred to quite a lot so it was really getting on my nerves by the end. I also found it weird that Lo-Melkhiin’s people all referred to her as “lady-bless” and I was almost cringing every time it happened.
I found the plot to be very slow moving in parts and it wasn’t until well into the second half of the book where things began to pick up for me. The writing style also confused me and it took me a while to get used to it and even longer before I could work out what was actually going on with the plot. Also, the magic in this book wasn’t explained at all and that only added to my confusion while I was still working everything out in my head.
I did like that there were sections that were told from Lo-Melkhiin’s perspective. It was an effective way to provide some insights into his character and also provide some plot twists. These sections really helped me to understand what was happening with the plot and once I had figured out Lo-Melkhiin’s secret, I felt that the story got better from there.
The ending felt a little rushed to me, compared to how the rest of the book was drawn out. It was also fairly predictable but I still liked it and it had been along the lines of what I wanted, so it actually redeemed this book a little for me.
Also a very minor issue that I had was the formatting errors that were in this book. I realise that it was only a review copy and that some mistakes are to be expected, but there was weird spacing and random capital letters at the start of every chapter. The author’s name or the book title randomly inserted right in the middle of a paragraph also didn't help matters.
Overall, despite all the issues that I had with this book, there were still some good qualities about it. The plot, while slow moving at times, did keep me interested and I wanted to keep reading to find out what would happen. I gave this book a generous 3/5 rating and I recommend it to those who still want to read this book despite reading this review. Who knows? Maybe you’ll end up loving it.
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