Shadow Spinner

Each night Shahrazad tells her husband, the Sultan the stories to keep herself alive but each night it becomes more difficult to find new tales that will entertain him. Marjan, a young crippled storyteller, visits the harem and is taken to Shahrazad so that she might pass on her stories. Shahrazad tells one of Marjan’s tales and finds that the Sultan remembers it as a favourite from childhood but Marjan cannot remember the ending and must search for the old, blind storyteller from whom she heard the tale.

A story of peril and intrigue beautifully written to evoke the sensuous atmosphere of the harem. The novel asserts the power of stories to educate and awaken dulled emotions; ‘People take what they need from the stories they hear. The tale is often wiser than the teller.’