In this riveting take on One Thousand and One Nights,
Shaherazade, at the center of her own story, uses wit and
political mastery to navigate opulent palaces brimming with
treachery and the perils of the Third Crusade as her Persian
homeland teeters on the brink of destruction.
In twelfth century, Persia, clever and dreamy Shaherazade stumbles on
the Malik's beloved wife entwined with a lover in a sun-dappled
courtyard. When Shaherazade recounts her first tale, the story of this
infidelity, to the Malik, she sets the Seljuk Empire on fire.
Enraged at his wife's betrayal, the once-gentle Malik beheads her. But
when that killing does not quench his anger, the Malik begins to marry
and behead a new bride each night. Furious at the murders, his province
seethes on rebellion's edge. To suppress her guilt, quell threats of a
revolt, and perhaps marry the man she has loved since childhood,
Shaherazade persuades her beloved father, the Malik's vizier, to offer
her as the next wife. On their wedding night, Shaherazade begins a yarn,
but as the sun ascends she cuts the story short, ensuring that she will
live to tell another tale, a practice she repeats night after night.
But the Malik's rage runs too deep for Shaherazade to exorcise alone.
And so she and her father persuade the Malik to leave Persia to join
Saladin's fight against the Crusaders in Palestine. With plots spun
against the Seljuks from all corners, Shaherazade must maneuver through
intrigue in the age's greatest courts to safeguard her people. All the
while, she must keep the Malik enticed with her otherworldly
tales--because the slightest misstep could cost Shaherazade her head.
This suspenseful first-person retelling is vividly rendered through the
voice of a fully imagined Shaherazade, a book lover whose late mother
bestowed the gift of story that becomes her power. Created over fourteen
years of writing and research, Jamila Ahmed's gorgeously written debut
is a celebration of storytelling and a love letter to the medieval
Islamic world that brings to life one of the most enduring and
intriguing woman characters of all time.
