Book of a Thousand Days

Starred review from September 24, 2007
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.

Starred review from October 1, 2007
Gr 5-9-Hale's novelization of the relatively obscure Grimm Brothers' fairy tale "Maid Maleen" is quite an improvement over the original. Rather than merely adding flesh to the Grimms' skeleton, the author has taken a few of the prominent bones (a love match thwarted by an autocratic king, the princess and her maid condemned to a tower for seven years, the country a wasteland when they finally escape) and constructed a new and far more appealing body. Lady Saren loves Khan Tegus, who rules a lesser realm, and she refuses to marry the evil man whom her father has chosen for her for political gains. The narrator, Dashti, is the princess's maid, immured in the tower almost as soon as she's found employment in the royal household. Bound to obey her mistress, Dashti is ordered to speak in her place when Tegus comes calling on their prison. Many readers will guess how that will eventually turn out, but they won't predict how Dashti and Tegus will overcome physical, political, and social obstacles to recognize their mutual love and defy convention in order to marry. Hale has created a richly imagined, mythical land something like medieval Mongolia, replete with magical song and touch therapy for spiritual or corporeal ailments, intuitive animals, and a sort of Faustian werewolf. It's a highly successful romance."Miriam Lang Budin, Chappaqua Public Library, NY"

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