12/1/2015BookFilter | Evernote Web https://www.evernote.com/Home.action#n=3b1c9812-177f-4c44-936a-2835e8f2f069&ses=4&sh=2&sds=5&1/3HomeTop Picks: All BooksA Thousand Nights A Thousand Nightsby E.K.</p><p> JohnstonPrice: $18.99(Hardcover)Published: October 06, 2015Rating: 0.0/5 (0 votes cast)From the Publisher: "A story threaded with shimmering vibranceand beauty, A Thousand Nights will weave its spell over readers'hearts and leave them captivated long after the final tale has beentold." -Alexandra Bracken, New York Times best-selling author ofThe Darkest Minds seriesLo-Melkhiin killed three hundred girls before he came to hervillage, looking for a wife.</p><p> When she sees the dust cloud on thehorizon, she knows he has arrived.</p><p> She knows he will want theloveliest girl: her sister.</p><p> She vows she will not let her be next.And so she is taken in her sister's place, and she believes deathwill soon follow.</p><p> Lo-Melkhiin's court is a dangerous palace filledwith pretty things: intricate statues with wretched eyes, exquisitethreads to weave the most beautiful garments.</p><p> She seeseverything as if for the last time.But the first sun rises and sets,and she is not dead.</p><p> Night after night, Lo-Melkhiin comes to herand listens to the stories she tells, and day after day she is awokenby the sunrise.</p><p> Exploring the palace, she begins to unlock years offear that have tormented and silenced a kingdom.</p><p> Lo-Melkhiin wasnot always a cruel ruler.</p><p> Something went wrong.Far away, in their village, her sister is mourning.</p><p> Through her pain,she calls upon the desert winds, conjuring a subtle unseen magic,and something besides death stirs the air.Back at the palace, the words she speaks to Lo-Melkhiin everynight are given a strange life of their own.</p><p> Little things, at first: adress from home, a vision of her sister.</p><p> With each tale she spins,her power grows.</p><p> Soon she dreams of bigger, more terrible magic:power enough to save a king, if she can put an end to the rule of amonster.BookFilter12/1/2015BookFilter | Evernote Web https://www.evernote.com/Home.action#n=3b1c9812-177f-4c44-936a-2835e8f2f069&ses=4&sh=2&sds=5&2/3Rate This Book|Rate/ReviewAdd To BookshelfGet This Book Personalize / Add More ChoicesGo to your preferred retailer, click to choose a format and you' ll be taken directly to their site whereyou can get this book.</p><p> What We SayAuthor E.K.</p><p> Johnston must have feasted on sand when writing her debut novel: it feels completely at home in thedesert.</p><p> Ideas and imagery, the metaphors and stories characters employ, the world they inhabit is all clearly andconvincingly rooted in an Arabian world of long ago.</p><p> While Johnston's book uses elements from the tale ofScheherazade, it is not a "reboot" or retelling.</p><p> You soon forget the source it drew upon.</p><p> A young woman lives in aland where a cruel king takes a new bride and after a day or a week or at most a month, kills her and takes a newone from another village.</p><p> Since times are good and the kind otherwise rules well, men go along.</p><p> Not our heroine.Everyone knows her sister will be chosen when their time comes but instead she arranges to be taken instead.</p><p> Backat the palace with the king, what should be a terrifying night becomes an odd battle of wills.</p><p> The new queen doesn'tpacify him with a series of tales ending in a cliffhanger a la the Scheherezade of our youth.</p><p> The simple fact that shedoesn't appear afraid of him intrigues the man.</p><p> Magic is present in this telling and slowly the battle for her lifebecomes a battle for the king's soul once she suspects a demon has taken hold.</p><p> The novel tells the tale from boththe perspective of our heroine and in certain passages the demon that occupies the king's body.</p><p> In a bold gambit,most of the characters are unnamed; our heroine is just that, and her sister is called her sister and her father is calledher father.</p><p> These people often come alive as individuals but the lack of naming gives the story a fable-like quality thatmakes the magic seem perfectly natural.</p><p> It climaxes smartly and satisfyingly if rather neatly. "A Thousand Nights"doesn't quite hit greatness but it's solid in ways that bode well.</p><p> One has the sense Johnston is just stretching hermuscles here.</p><p> We're not left with a cliffhanger, but nonetheless she impatiently leaves the reader wanting more. --Michael GoltzLessWhat You SayFilter byNo Reviews Found .....
