I never thought I’d find myself editing a book while sitting in a Paris cafe drinking a “chocolat chaud!” But something about the metrosexual, vibrant nature of Paris in winter called to the writer in me (or perhaps it was the lack of ready access to the internet!). Even as I worked on this story set in the Middle East, with sand and sun, my mind was already straying to an as yet unwritten story set in Europe in modern times…
“Dream of a Thousand Nights” started as a one-shot story about a lonely prince and a Jinn, who saved the prince from himself when the prince was disconsolate over the death of his young and beautiful wife. The Jinn’s revelation, that he himself had held back the young prince’s hand when the prince had tried to kill himself with his dagger, was the ultimate revelation. The Jinn had always been the prince’s side; the prince had never been truly alone.
Of course, if you’ve read “Dream,” you’ll see the story has changed somewhat from this first kernel of an idea. There is no princess, but a young man, whom the prince has forgotten, but whose presence haunts his dreams. The prince of “Dreams,” Neriah, is hardly suicidal, but his heart has grown cold with time and the memory of his mother’s murder and self-sacrifice. Tamir, the kind Jinn who has sacrificed so much for the love of his prince, returns to find an embittered prince and struggles to reawaken the prince’s cold heart.
So there you have it — the genesis of Neriah and Tamir, and of “Dream of a Thousand Nights.” I hope you will grow to love these two men as I did while writing them!
Much love,
Shira
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