The Wrath and the Dawn Review

THE WRATH AND THE DAWN
Series: The Wrath and the Dawn #1 
Genre: YA, Fantasy
Release Date: May 12th 2015

Book Length: 395 pages
Publisher: G. P. Putnams Sons
Source: Physical copy, Goodreads 
Review: 4/5 *Full Review Below.

Blurb:
A sumptuous and epically told love story inspired by A Thousand and One Nights

Every dawn brings horror to a different family in a land ruled by a killer. Khalid, the eighteen-year-old Caliph of Khorasan, takes a new bride each night only to have her executed at sunrise. So it is a suspicious surprise when sixteen-year-old Shahrzad volunteers to marry Khalid. But she does so with a clever plan to stay alive and exact revenge on the Caliph for the murder of her best friend and countless other girls. Shazi's wit and will, indeed, get her through to the dawn that no others have seen, but with a catch . . . she’s falling in love with the very boy who killed her dearest friend.

She discovers that the murderous boy-king is not all that he seems and neither are the deaths of so many girls. Shazi is determined to uncover the reason for the murders and to break the cycle once and for all.

“So you would have me throw Shazi to the wolves?”

“Shazi?” Jalal’s grin widened. “Honestly, I pity the wolves.”

A tantalising debut!

This book truly deserves all the praise it's received over the past few weeks, needless to say I couldn’t wait to get my hands on it and see what all the fuss was all about BUT I did have my issues…

This story is about the Caliph of Khorasan; Khalid, he marries a girl every night only to have her executed at dawn, hanged by a silk cord. Crazy? Yes! Terrifying? Obviously! Intriguing? HELL YES! Enter our heroine Shahrzad, when her best friend falls victim to this ruthless monster she’s heartbroken and is determined that the Caliph's reign of terror must end, she volunteers to become his next bride and kill him. On the night of their wedding Shazi begins to tell Khalid a story of magic genies and mysterious islands but when dawn comes she refuses to finish and leaves her story on a cliffhanger hoping it will spare her life… AND IT WORKS, she lives to see another dawn!

As with these stories there are constant questions such as: Why does he kill his wives? Is he really a monster? And as always things are a lot more complicated then they seem. Soon Shazi realizes that she truly knows nothing about Khalid and he’s not the monster he’s been made out to be, so what exactly is he hiding and why do his wives have to die?

This book is a gorgeous fantasy that will take you to a stunning world with a rich culture of food, music and twisting tales of Aladdin. The description of food in this book with leave you frustrated as I was many times as my kitchen did not have basmati rice, lamb, chicken, berries? Not a sausage, don’t read this on a empty stomach!

All in all this book is a fascinating read that was impossible to put down, so why not 5 stars?

This book is essentially a romance and I am shamelessly obsessed with them, a good romance can save a book for me! Now I love a smutty book however this is not needed in the slightest for me to enjoy it, a perfectly PG 13 romance can still be just as good however what I do need is DETAILS now matter how small or insignificant they seem. I need to be able to connect with the characters and understand what is going on. For example the romance in this book was obviously a slow burn, hate turning into love takes a lot of time which this book does but in this case Shazi is offering herself like a lamb to slaughter so to give herself freely to Khalid on their wedding night is a big deal, this was handled in like one or two sentences? For me this was far too little.. 

I also took issue with Shazi being a silver tongued viper and an obvious strong heroine to murder the King but her only plan was to tell him a story until dawn and then refuse to give the ending? This certainly didn’t seem like something she would do and with no fallback plan either, I dread to think if his answer to “Can I tell you a story?” was “No, shut up I’m leaving.” Maybe this was just me reading a little too much into things but sometimes it’s the little things that matter.

Apart from my babbling this really was a fantastic debut and not only were the MC characters awesome but the cheeky secondary characters quickly became my favourites. I highly recommend this book to everyone and I can’t wait for Book 2: The Rose and the Dagger as it promises a lot more magic!

“What are you doing to me, you plague of a girl?” he whispered.

“If I’m a plague, then you should keep your distance, unless you plan on being destroyed.” The weapons still in her grasp, she shoved against his chest.

“No.” His hands dropped to her waist. “Destroy me.”