Book of a Thousand Days
-
-
4.8 • 6 Ratings
-
-
- $7.99
-
- $7.99
Publisher Description
From New York Times bestselling, Newbery Honor-winning author Shannon Hale comes a Brothers Grimm fairy tale retelling about mistaken identity and love gone awry.
When Lady Saren refuses to marry a man she fears, she and her maid, Dashti, are locked in a tower with just a tiny flap open to the outside world. As food runs low and the weather changes from broiling hot to unbearably cold, it is all Dashti can do to make them comfortable in their dark prison.
Not long after their confinement begins, Saren's suitors arrive--one welcome, the other less so--and she orders Dashti to speak to them. Impersonating Lady Saren is a crime punishable by death, but Dashti will have to play the role many times if she is to save them both from the tower and the dangers outside. As she takes control of their desperate situation, Dashti begins to understand her own astonishing talents and believe that even a low-born maid can find true love.
Don't miss any of these other books from New York Times bestselling author Shannon Hale:
The Books of Bayern
The Goose Girl
Enna Burning
River Secrets
Forest Born
The Princess Academy trilogy
Princess Academy
Princess Academy: Palace of Stone
Princess Academy: The Forgotten Sisters
Book of a Thousand Days
Dangerous
Graphic Novels
with Dean Hale, illustrated by Nathan Hale
Rapunzel's Revenge
Calamity Jack
For Adults
Austenland
Midnight in Austenland
The Actor and the Housewife
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Hale (River Secrets) delivers another winning fantasy, this time inventively fleshing out the obscure Grimm tale, Maid Maleen, through the expressive and earthy voice of Dashti, maid to Lady Saren. A plucky and resourceful orphan, Dashti comes from a nomad tribe in a place resembling the Asian Steppes, and is brought to the Lady's house in the midst of a crisis. Lady Saren, having refused to marry the powerful but loathsome Lord her father has chosen, faces seven years' imprisonment in an unlit tower. Initially, Dashti believes her worth is tied to her ability to care for her "tower-addled" lady until she can join Khan Tegus, to whom she is secretly betrothed. When the gentle Tegus comes to the tower, Dashti must step in for her traumatized lady, speaking to him as Saren through the one tiny metal door. Hale exploits the diary form to convey Dashti's perspective; despite her self-effacing declaration that "I draw this from memory so it won't be right," the entries reflect her genuinely spirited inner life. The tension between her unstinting loyalty and patience and burgeoning realization of her own strength and feelings for Tegus feels especially authentic. Readers will be riveted as Dashti and Saren escape and flee to the Khan's realm where, through a series of deceptions, contrivances and a riotously triumphant climax, the tale spins out to a thoroughly satisfying ending. Ages 12-up.
