Author: E.K. Johnton
Standalone
Genres: Fantasy | Young Adult
Release Date: 22nd October 2015
Publishers: Macmillin
Source: Review Copy - Macmillin
Rating:
Lo-Melkhiin killed 300 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. 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 rises and sets, 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.
Far away, 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.
Back at the palace, the words she speaks to Lo-Melkhiin every night are given a strange life of their own. 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.
Let it be said that it is physically possible for a book to blow somebody away, knock the wind right from within them and leave them starstruck. It is physically possible for a single book, a single beautifully written book, to leave such an everlasting impression within such a short number of page. It was physically possible that A Thousand Nights will be the shadowed younger sibling of The Wrath and the Dawn, and I find this absolutely despicable. A Thousand Nights is, within it's own right, an absolutely gorgeous novel discovering the power and strength of a strong willed and intelligent woman, and enlightening cold, dark nights with the allure of pretty magic with the power to change to world. In case you hadn't noticed, I kind of loved this book, just a teeny bit more than I had expected to, and I could not be happier for it.
I was aware of A Thousand Nights roots - it's a retelling of A Thousand and One Nights, or Arabian Nights depending on where on live, a story I personally had never even heard of before considering this novel, let a lone read, and I'm pleased to say that this did not affect my experience or enjoyment whatsoever. In fact, I'd be willing to say it probably made my experience all the more enticing and exciting, and as far as first encounters go, this was a fabulous first impression. Culturally, this novel wa beautiful, inspired by the Arabians and their way of live both in the cities and the deserts, I was completely immersed in this world with it's silks and tapestries, it's food and it's way of life, it was the perfect backdrop, subtle, yet shadowed with just enough detail to make it tangible. A Thousand Nights would not have been the beautiful book it was without these world-based details.
Where A Thousand Nights shines brightest is through it's storyline and characters. While staying as true to the original as possible, Johnston created a beautiful, magical story of one woman, a woman who's name we never learn, and her battle to not only stay alive, but save her people, and all those affected by those people, and it's a powerful story at it's best. Sure, the magical elements make this novel so so good, but it's the lady who leads this story who makes it as powerful as it is. She has strength and a fire that is honestly incomparable to a lot of other fantasy novels, who uses her knowledge, her life lessons and her mind as a way to battle through her choices rather than her firsts. A Thousand Nights highlighted how women can be strong without being physical fighters, how they control, inspire and create lasting impressions on not only other woman, but everyone she touches. There was nothing I disliked about our unnamed leading lady, I only wish I had known her name, although to take away her anonymity would take away from her smallgod status and possible tarnish what was a perfect novel in every way. Her relationships with her sister and her mother figures, her male family members and her staff later in the novel was beautiful and just gave me such a light and fluffy feel. The darker and more sinister moments, which brought out the depth this novel had, where balanced out by this light and only made the story all the more addictive to read.
It's addictiveness is all thanks to the clear pacing and the writing which was just so unbelievably pretty. It flowed like a song, and felt so crisp and clean that I could have read more by Johnston past the point of the end - I'd read her shopping list if it sounded like this novel did, and the flow and beauty of the pacing, the developments and the twists it took, I was enamored, I was enthralled, and I hated how long it took to read this novel due to my own incompetence as it was, truly, perfection on paper. It just ha this flow, this fierceness through our unnamed ladys perspective that made me want to read more, and it pushed me to fight alongside our leading lady, it it made me feel for the characters we learnt more about. The stories told in past tense to solidify the many different characters learning, and the inclusion of multiple perspectives was a breath of fantasy fresh air, and I honestly could have read this novel all night long. This novel is faultless, and I'm not afraid to boast about it.
A Thousand Nights will, without a doubt, be compared to The Wrath and the Dawn, and as two very different retellings of the same story, I find this harsh. A Thousand Nights is so uniquely written and has a romance that is more like a battle than a love story, with a fierce leading lady with so much inner strength and wisdom, that just sings to my heart. It's without a doubt a novel I would read again, snuggled on the sofa with a hot chocolate and blankets, to feel the warmth of the desert world around me, to feel the love and wonder that passes between these characters, the feel the darkness of the sinister scenes creep over me, and feel the beauty and the success that was the last final pages. Nothing makes reading more rewarding than a beautiful book, and this my friends, is exactly that.
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