I loved this baffling, bedazzling book of tales within tales within tales. The book has a framework of a young girl with mysterious ink around her eyes hiding in a garden by an undefined sultan's palace. The sultan's young son meets the girl and learns that the ink are stories that the girl knows, and so he makes her tell him two tales. The first tale is about a prince who kills the daughter of a witch, the second tale is about a girl as pale as snow living in an icy city. But both tales are like Russian dolls, nested within them are tales within tales within tales as the reader gets to meet gods that used to be stars, mystical creatures like the Leucrotta, opulent cities like Al-A-Nur, demons and necromancers. The two tales are actually sharing narrative strands. Sometimes it's a bit difficult to follow when picking the book back up but I mostly found it enchanting and difficult to put down. I loved fairy tales as a child, and these tales had the same atmosphere. Sometimes enchanting and colorful, sometimes very dark and grim. It's Arabian Nights meets Grimm.

I'm looking forward to reading the second volume.