The Wrath and the Dawn is a YA retelling of 1001 Arabian Nights. Or, I should say, a retelling of the Arabian Nights‘ frame story, of a brave young woman who volunteers to be the bride of a serial killer ruler who murders his new brides the morning after their wedding night. Needless to say, this backstory is a little problematic for the modern reader. In The Wrath and the Dawn, the nesting tall tales that the original is famous for take a back seat to the main story, a romance between the latest bride Shahrzad  and the killer Caliph Khalid. There is a convoluted explanation for Khalid’s mass murder spree which comes out late in the novel, but the main character’s early attraction to a man who murdered her best friend (and many other young women) left a bad taste in my mouth. Overall, it was too reminiscent of a storyline where a rape victim falls in love with her assailant.

As is evident from the thumbnail, the book’s cover is gorgeous, and I had high hopes for the story inside. The novel does have solid writing, and a lovely amount of detail that evokes a sense of medieval Arabic life and culture. What it lacks are characters that fit into that world. Shahrzad comes across as more whiny than heroic, and her bizarre interactions with her handmaiden don’t help. Khalid as a tortured romantic soul who –gosh darn it!– doesn’t want to be a mass killer of young woman, didn’t cut it for me. Sharzad’s other heartthrob, Tariq, who dashes around on an Arabian horse accompanied by a killer falcon, had more potential. Unfortunately, his character simply walks away from a major conflict at the end, leaving me confused. In fact, the second half of the book, between the unlikely actions of the characters and the improbable plot twists, left me bewildered. To make matters worse, the novel is actually book one of a trilogy, not a fun thing to discover as you turn the last few pages.

Despite the fantastic background and setting, I’ll be giving the rest of the series a pass. There’s no explicit sex (in fact, I think some well-written sensual scenes might have added to this book) and a standard amount of sword slashing and violence.

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A rollicking tale of adventure and love set in an alternate steampunk Asia, “Hearts Before Diamonds” is a short story revolving around Edward Wallace, an American expat in India who works as a ‘problem solver’ for a fee. When Timir, a new client hoping to thwart the arranged marriage of his beloved arrives, Wallace sets out to use his unique talents to see that true love wins out in the end.

Only a few teasing glimpses of the complex story world Fields has created are revealed in the plot, which proceeds with a galloping pace and plenty of action. America has an emperor, flying tigers terrorize the populace, and Diamond Princes who sell the gems from the fabled mines of King Solomon have to deal with dwarves who mine the precious stones.

References to Hindu deities, as well as Muslim concepts of the Jinn, are utilized in the story. Surprise twists are sprinkled throughout, and in a refreshing change, both class issues and sexual orientation are brought into the story world. None of this gets in the way of a great adventure, however.

“Hearts Before Diamonds” does a great job incorporating the diversity of Indian culture with a steampunk flair. Some mature themes are touched upon, but the story would appeal to older teens, and readers of any age interested in non-Western settings for Fantasy.

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As in many novels revolving around Middle Eastern mythology, the Jinn are a malevolent force here. Key mythology points from the legends, including the story of the lost city of Ubar, swept away in a great sandstorm, are woven into the plot. Also included is a sense of the religious diversity of the time, where followers of the Zoroastrian religion play a key role. Religion is handled in a straightforward manner, as a key component of the character’s lives, which fits in well with the historical time period.

My main disappointment with the novel was the limited handling of female characters. Jones sets up a great young female character, Sabiyah, who rebels against her expected role as a wife and mother and thirsts for knowledge. But she ends up more as an unattainable love object rather than a flesh-and-blood character, and she is whisked away at the end of the book into an arranged marriage.

I finished the book in one day, and would highly recommend it. It’s one of the few novels I’ve come across, along with Saladin Ahmed’s “Throne of the Crescent Moon”that uses a medieval Arabian setting for a sword and sorcery epic. The novel has the amount of violence most fans of traditional fantasy would expect, and although there is a romantic subplot, no sex to speak of. It’s not aimed at a YA audience, but older teens interested in fantasy might find it interesting. I’m excited to read the next novel in the series!

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Jonathan Stroud’s ‘trilogy’, featuring the wise-cracking djinni Bartimaeus, is actually four books, counting the prequel “Solomon’s Ring”. A YA series, the books detail the development of a young boy, Nathaniel, who is taken from his parents to train as a magician in an alternate history where the British Empire continues to keep the American colonies under its thumb, and where an elite class of magicians enslave millennia-old genies and other spirits to maintain control over the population. Although the book treads popular ground in a story about a young boy training in magic, the 5,000 year-old Bartimaeus steals the show, with his quirky sense of humor and an underlying humanity his ‘human’ masters rarely show.

Some classical concepts of the Jinn are used in the novel, including the concept of summoning demons and binding them to a task with magic. As always, the rewards of such an endeavor have to be balanced against the risk: Bartimaeus is quite prepared to devour his new young master if a single detail is left unattended to.

Stroud also uses some of the traditional subdivisions of Jinn into ‘Afrit’ and ‘Marid’. In his story world, the Jinn exist in an ethereal alternate world where they have no form, and they are capable of taking on the appearance of animals and humans only when summoned. The concept of possession, which appears frequently in classical literature about the Jinn, isn’t employed much until the final book, “Ptolemy’s Gate”, and even there plays a minor role.

The history of the ancient Middle East is delved into, with references to King Solomon, who reportedly used the power of captive Jinn to build his empire. The prequel “Solomon’s Ring’ is set entirely in this ancient world, with a feisty female assassin as Bartimaeus’s counterpart. References to the more contemporary Middle East of the novel’s setting are more limited. As in many YA works, the religious life of the characters is largely ignored, so any Islamic interpretations of the Jinn don’t play a role in the story.

A charming and lively series, the ‘Bartimaeus’ books provide a wonderful anti-hero Jinn and an engrossing story world. Although the budding sexual urges of the young people in the novels are only hinted at, the book does contain a fair amount of violence and the final book’s resolution is far from a stereotypical happy ending. Young fans of darker fare such as ‘Divergent’ certainly won’t have an issue with it, and the series will entertain many adults as well.

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In a near-future city, Arab-Indian hacker Alif (the first letter of the Arabic alphabet) sells his illegal skills to the highest bidder while dreaming of a future he can’t have with his aristocratic lover. Meanwhile, the devout, niqab-wearing girl next door warns him that the local mouser may be more than she seems: “All cats are half jinn, but I think she’s three-quarters.”

What follows next is an exciting urban fantasy set in the Middle East that blends thriller elements with a strong romantic subplot. Wilson, an American convert to Islam who wrote about straddling two different cultures in her memoir, The Butterfly Mosque, pulls in different religious concepts about the Jinn to populate her story-world. She includes an appendix with great graphic depictions of the five types of Jinn, and incorporates the concept of the ‘Unseen’ as having free will, including the choice of what religion to follow. Unlike most fiction, which treats the Jinn as creepy monsters or wish-fulfillment machines, ‘Alif’ depicts them as complex characters who are more sympathetic than the police state the hero struggles against.

Themes of autocracy, as well as ethnic and class differences, are woven in nicely and provide a glimpse of the diversity of the ‘Arab Street’ so often talked about by Western journalists. Especially refreshing is having a POC protagonist from the culture being described, and details of Muslim women’s religious dress are treated as part of the story, without exoticism.

I had a few quibbles with the story. I found a side character who was too much based on the author herself less interesting than Alif and his companions, and I wanted to read more about the world of the Jinn and how their magic worked. Overall, though, I enjoyed the book and didn’t want to put it down. There’s strong romantic tension and great pacing, and the novel would appeal to a broad spectrum of readers. There’s no explicit sex, and the violence is not graphic, so some teens might find it a great read as well.

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