The Book of A Thousand Days Shannon Hale Published by Bloomsbury ISBN 978 0 7475 9781 0
Shannon Hale established herself as a clever re-imaginer of fairy tales with her debut novel The Goose Girl, an intriguing retelling of a classic Grimm brothers story. Hale's new story, The Book of A Thousand Days, also takes a Grimm fairy tale as its starting point.
But in this book, the prince isn't charming, the princess is not the bravest and you get the feeling there might not be a happy ending.
Dashti is a 15-year-old peasant girl from somewhere in the Central Asian steppes. She thinks she is lucky when she gets the job as companion and maid to the daughter of a rich nobleman. But her stubborn mistress gets them both in a bind.
Lady Saren is a year older than Dashti. She is in love with Khan Tegus, but her father wants her to marry the powerful Lord Khasar. She refuses and her father imprisons her and Dashti in a dark tower for seven years. If Saren gives in, the two will be released. Otherwise they're trapped there until their sentence is up. Dashti is loyal to her mistress, and determined to look after her until they are released and Lady Saren can marry her true love. But when Dashti finds a way for the pair to escape, the town they knew is in ruins, and no one remembers them. Something terrible has happened, and there is more danger lurking.