Waiting on Wednesday (105): A Thousand Nights by E.K. Johnston

Waiting on Wednesday is a weekly event that is hosted by Jill at Breaking the Spine and spotlights upcoming releases that we're eagerly anticipating.



Title: A Thousand Nights
Author: E.K. Johnston
Publisher: Disney-Hyperion (Hachette)
Release Date: October 6, 2015
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. 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.


The cover is sooooo pretty! Plus, I love a good retelling so I can't want to get my hands on this.

What are you waiting on this week?

Blog Tour (Review & Giveaway): Those Rosy Hours at Mazandaran by Marion Grace Woolley

Title: Those Rosy Hours at Mazandaran
Author: Marion Grace Woolley
Publisher: Ghostwood Books
Release Date: February 14, 2015
Acquired Via: TLC Book Tours
It begins with a rumour, an exciting whisper. Anything to break the tedium of the harem for the Shah’s eldest daughter. People speak of a man with a face so vile it would make a hangman faint, but a voice as sweet as an angel’s kiss. A master of illusion and stealth. A masked performer, known only as Vachon. For once, the truth will outshine the tales.

On her eleventh birthday, Afsar’s uncle tries to molest her, and her father, the Shah, gifts her a circus. With the circus comes a man who will change everything. Inspired by Gaston LeRoux’s The Phantom of the Opera, Marion Grace Woolley takes us on forbidden adventures through a time that has been written out of history books.

Praise

“A sumptuous dark treat of a novel, will keep you shocked and enthralled until the very last page.” – Will Davis, author of The Trapeze Artist

“Rising from the cracks and hints in Gaston Leroux’s classic, Those Rosy Hours delivers a striking and glorious original historical fantasy that sings across time from the heart of a lost empire.” – David Southwell, author of The Phoenix Guide to Strange England: Hookland

“…evocative and gripping. I missed several tube stops thanks to my immersion in [Those Rosy Hours]…” – Kate Harrad, author of All Lies and Jest

“Disquieting and enchanting.” – Peter Dawes, USA Today best-selling author of Pandora

My Review

I haven't written a negative review in a really long time, and, unfortunately, this is going to to be one. Those Rosy Hours at Mazandaran was rife with gratuitous violenc and demented individuals, but lacking in characters that I cared anything about. The writing was not awful, but neither did it pull me into the story.