) quickly approaching and harsh reality encroaching on the surreal garden, the orphan girl's stories finally run out. But with the wedding of the prince's sister Dinarzad (a not-so-subtle homage to The Arabian Nights The girl shares her stories with the enthralled young heir to the Sultanate, who returns again and again to hear incredible yarns about one-armed heroes, hunchbacked ferrymen, giants, voracious gem eaters, conniving hedgehogs, harpies, djinns and singing Manticores. A mysterious orphan girl, whose eyelids are darkly tattooed with the closely packed words from a seemingly endless number of fantastical tales, lives secretly in a palace garden. ), structured as a series of nested stories, is a fairy tale lover's wildest dream come true. The light shines brighter after having gazed into the darkness, but at times the dark seems never to end.The second and concluding volume of Tiptree Award–winner Valente's Orphan's Tales (after 2006's In the Night Garden To understand ethereal mystery, one must tread the path of blood, birth, darkness, and death. The grotesque stands alongside the beautiful.
Like the original tales of the Brothers Grimm or the Arabian Nights, these are not softened or polished at the edges. Yet this book is not for the faint of heart. Each word seems chosen with the precision of poetry. With firebirds and wizards, saints and shapeshifters, pirates and goddesses, this book takes elements of the stories we all know and turns them into something new and unpredictable.Ĭatherynne Valente enchanted me with her writing. The tales seem to flow from all languages and traditions: the sword and steed of European stories meet with the spices and tunics of the Arabian peninsula Native American animal spirit guides stand next to tattooed tribes from the windswept moor. Tales within tales are interwoven in a complex tapestry of story – held together by the motif of a mysterious girl with stories to tell to a runaway prince. It’s a tale of stars who bleed light, of towered maidens who turn into beasts, of seaworthy ships grown from live trees. The strange beauty of this book is hard to define.
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