Say the name Scheherazade and strains of the immortal music come floating through my mind. As a young girl my mother had a two album LP of Scheherazade by the Berlin Orchestra that I played till it was so scared and worn that it would play no longer. It wasn’t until I was in high school that I truly read some of the stories of Scheherazade and fell even more in love with the wonderful story of this young lady. In my innocence I did not understand the brilliance of her stories and the true story of what she was accomplishing. But her stories were captivating to my young mind and I fell into her web and was drawn into the land of endless time.
I am so excited about the project of the recreation and retelling of the story of Scheherazade. It is such an immense undertaking and such an opportunity to share between authors with a common theme. It will be a joy to read and see where a twenty-first century woman’s spin on an old story takes us. Who better to start the game than the formable Lexi Blake and M. J. Rose.
Having read several of M. J. Rose’s previous works, I knew that I would be in for a treat and a sensuous trip back in time. From the start, two new elements were introduced that guaranteed captivation of the audience and a new spin - time travel and a bloodline to La Lune a “witch” and enchantress dating back in time who played a central role in M. J.’s book The Witch of Painted Sorrows.
Limited to novella length, The First Night, still took major steps towards back story and character development of the major characters in the story. By the end of the book, I had fallen under the spell of the central characters and was finding myself fascinated with the king, who we only met from a distance. This first story stayed focused on Scheherazade (Camille in another time and place) and Khalid the king’s mage.
Hints of themes were scattered and introduced throughout the work much like dangling participles, but these were dangling hopes of stories to come. These hints guaranteed to captivate the literary soul who longs for closure. Despite these wonderful hidden gems and glimmers, Lexi and M. J. still shared a complete story between the pages of this short work in a masterful way that still managed to leave this reader sated, but with a hunger for the potential of what might come with the next book. Have they indeed given us a taste of what Scheherazade did with the king each night?
Lexi Blake and M.J. Rose worked well together. Their writing was so seamless, that this reader could not sense when one or the other writer was at work. The ebb and flow of the storyline kept the reader eager to turn the next page, ready to see where the plot would be taking them, hoping that the next page would not herald the dreaded words – THE END. Needless to say, they have set the bar for the rest of the series. I look forward to reading the continuing series.
I would give this novella a solid FIVE STAR rating. The book was a free offering and no review was required or requested in exchange