THE SUMMER GIRL: An Avalon Bay Novel by Elle KennedyĬollege student Cassie Soul hasn’t spent an entire summer in Avalon Bay in years, not since her parents divorced and her mother spitefully whisked her away to Boston. All the while, Shaherazade must keep the Malik enticed with her otherworldly tales-because the slightest misstep could cost Shaherazade her head.

With plots spun against Shaherazade and the Seljuks from all corners, Shaherazade must maneuver through intrigue in the age’s greatest courts to safeguard her people. And so, she and her father persuade the Malik to leave Persia-and the memories of his unfaithful wife-to join Saladin’s fight against the Crusaders in Palestine. On their wedding night, Shaherazade starts a tale, but as the sun ascends, she cuts the story off, ensuring that she will live to tell another tale, by repeating this practice night after night.īut the Malik’s rage runs too deep for Shaherazade to exorcise alone. She persuades her father, the Malik’s vizier, to use his sway as a top official and offer her as the Malik’s next wife. To suppress her guilt and quell threats of a revolt-and, perhaps, to marry the man she has loved since childhood-Shaherazade makes a plan. Furious at the murders, his province seethes on rebellion’s edge. But when that killing does not quench his anger, the Malik begins to marry and behead a new girl night after night. When Shaherazade slips her first tale, the story of this infidelity, to the Malik, she sets the Seljuk Empire on fire.Įnraged at his wife’s betrayal, the once-gentle Malik beheads her. In twelfth century, Persia, clever and dreamy Shaherazade stumbles on the Malik’s beloved wife entwined with a lover in a sun-dappled courtyard. Traveling through lush courtyards, perilous deserts, and opulent palaces brimming with secrets and treachery, Shaherazade must entertain her dangerous new husband, the Malik, and navigate court intrigue as her homeland teeters on brink of destruction in this sprawling new take on the classic One Thousand and One Nights.

The Witches of Bone Hill by Ava Morgyn