A Thousand Nights
Mythopoeic Award nominee 2016.
"Lo-Melkhiin killed three hundred girls before he came to my village, looking for a wife."
She sees the dust cloud on the horizon. Lo-Melkhiin has arrived. And she thinks also: he will not have my sister. She is taken in her sister's place, and she believes death will soon follow, but her sister calls upon the desert winds, conjuring a subtle unseen magic, and something besides death stirs the air in it's place.
Lo-Melkhiin's court is a dangerous palace filled with pretty things: intricate statues with evil eyes, exquisite threads to weave the most beautiful garments - all bought at cost beyond measure. He is not killing the girls he marries: he is draining them, and when their life-force has been used and they are dead, he casts them aside and weds anew.
Night after night passes, and she is not drained. The words she speaks to him every night are given strange life of their own. Little things, at first: a dress from home, a vision of her sister. But she dreams of bigger, more terrible magic: power enough to save a king, if only she can stop her heart from falling for a monster.
E. K. Johnston
E. K. Johnston is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of several YA novels, including the L.A. Time Book Prize finalist The Story of Owen and Star Wars: Ahsoka. Her novel A Thousand Nights was shortlisted for the Governor General’s Award. The New York Times called The Story of Owen “a clever first step in the career of a novelist who, like her troubadour heroine, has many more songs to sing” and in its review of Exit, Pursued by a Bear, The Globe & Mail called Johnston “the Meryl Streep of YA,” with “limitless range.” E. K. Johnston lives in Stratford, Ontario.
A Thousand Nights
A Thousand Nights consists of two books. The current recommended reading order for the series is provided below.