bcr16bingo rings
As a child, and an early reader, I was totally hooked on fairy tales, especially the more obscure ones from Andrew Lang. I loved his “color” collections – the Red Fairy Tale Book, the Purple Fairy Tale Book, the (I kid you not) Olive Fairy Tale Book. There were so many of them but never enough. Then later on, I branched out to fairy tale-adjacent, such as Bullfinch’s Mythology, and the Ricard Burton collection of the Arabian Nights. So I had some knowledge of the tales and tropes of this genre, but oh, my! Not like this!
Chelsea Abdullah is a young American Kuwait author who brings this glittering and magical world to life. The Midnight Merchant, Loulie al-Nazari, is the heroine who makes her way from one Night Market to the next, trafficking in high end magical goods. Accompanying her is the only family she has left, her friend/bodyguard the jinn Qudir, who often appears as a lizard riding on her shoulder when he goes incognito. Then there is the sultan and his two sons (there is a third, but we don’t see much of him – son of an unfavored wife). The eldest. Prince Omar, is handsome and ruthless, with a female bodyguard to match, Aisha. The younger son, Mazan, is drawn into an unsavory scheme concocted by his father and brother that causes him to switch his identity, and these four are off through the dunes and oasis and the Western Sandsea, dealing with lethal magical beings, and thugs, and each other.
Written with plenty of humor and set in a dazzling world, this was a great read. And I must admit to being fond of Night Markets myself, although in my neck of the woods they tend to be more Asian and food-oriented. But still!