A Thousand Nights by E.K. Johnston

A Thousand Nights by E.K. Johnston is a gorgeous spin on Arabian Nights. 

When the king, Lo-Melkhiin has married 300 women and each die on their wedding night, a law is decreed that determines the tribute of one woman per town. When the king arrives in their small wadi, our heroine sacrifices herself to save her sister, the most beautiful girl in the wadi. Her sister swears she will make her a small god, and that the magic of the small god will accompany her to the city.

The heroine intrigues the king with her stories and her lack of fear. Each morning, she is surprised to see the sunrise, but also discovers that her own personal power grows. She knows it is the power of the small gods. She also discovers that Lo-Melkhiin has been radically changed, and when he is injured, she senses inside him a poisonous viper.

Through the power of sisterhood, the power of words, and the power of her own determination, the queen becomes like Scheherazade from the original tale. Although she is not in the city for a thousand nights, the  power grows from the thousands of people all counting on her to save them from the demon king.

The characters in this story are distinctive and each has a specific story about the king or about the heroine. Each tells us some new part of the story, the history of the king, or the power of the land. The symbolism of the lion and the lioness are a nod to the name Scheherazade (which probably means lion-born), and the demon king is created during the killing of a lion. His mother also wears a lion's mane as her wig.

The writing in the book is lovely and lyrical. It's formal as a good fairy tale should be, but the magic and mystery feel very current. There was a shift in narrator at the very end where suddenly "I" from the entire book is now talking about "she" and we know that "she" has been the narrator all along. There is a very spelled out moral to the story. Both throw the reader out of the story abruptly. In fact, I jumped back to the beginning of the book to see if I had missed something. I loved the story, but I did not care for the epilogue. 

I would recommend this book, and I intend to purchase a copy for my classroom.

I received a copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for my honest review.