Rating: 1.5/5 
 (I received a free ecopy of this book from the publisher, Disney-Hyperion, via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.) 
 ***Minor spoilers*** 
 Lo-Melkhiin is a king who has had many, many wives, about 300. Sometimes his wives last a day, and the longest any of them have lasted is 30 days. Nobody knows what happens to them. When one wife dies, he goes onto another village and claims another, and nobody is allowed to oppose him. Lo-Melkhiin is coming to the nameless protagonist's village to claim another wife. Everyone thinks that he will claim her sister, who is said to be the fairest there. Because the protagonist wishes to save her sister, and dresses herself to look fairer than her, and the king takes her instead. She is taken to the king's home, a palace of sorts, but she is not afraid of dying. 
 At first, I thought this was an interesting story. There were a few things that I liked about the story, and a few things that I disliked. However, the things I disliked overshadowed those I liked, unfortunately. I enjoyed the setting of the story, and I think the world-building was good. I found it interesting how the people lived and how the society worked. I seldom read books set in a desert, so that bit was interesting. The other thing I enjoyed was the ending. I liked how everything wrapped up and I was left with no questions. 
 I think the biggest thing that irritated me about this book is that there didn't seem to be any goal in mind. I enjoy my fantasy novels to have some goal or end in sight, something that drives the protagonist and gives reasoning for their actions. I felt like this book was a whole lot of pointless wandering. There didn't seem to be any goal besides "survive," which I don't consider much of a goal on its own. I also really disliked how none of the characters had names except for the king. Everyone is addressed as a title, like "lady mother," "husband," and "sister." I felt like the story lacked something because there weren't any names to go along with the characters. 
 I also found the story extremely confusing at the beginning. There seemed to be random powers coming from nowhere and the protagonist was seeing things in her dreams that I didn't find explainable. At the end, things became much clearer, but for that time near the middle of the book I found it very annoying because there was little to no explanation for that. 
 Overall, I didn't enjoy this book very much. If you are like me and you prefer your fantasy novels to have a goal in sight, I wouldn't recommend this book. I'm unfamiliar with what this story was inspired from, One Thousand and One Nights, so if you're familiar with it you may have better luck. You may also enjoy it more if you're into fairy tales. Otherwise, I don't think you'd enjoy it.