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The Jinni's Last Wish

by Zenobia Neil

Publication Date: September 13th 2018

Paperback & eBook; 224 Pages

ASIN: B07FLDRY4V

Genre: Historical Fiction/Fantasy

The Book Junkie Reads . . . Review of . . . THE JINNI'S LAST WISH . . . Intriguing. A new land with culture, decrees, witchcraft, life, and more. I have not read anything like this or anything that I could compare to this one. My first story that gave lead to a eunuch. I felt deeply for Olin. He lost so much and Zenobia gave a tale that took him on a journey to make things right or to the best different. I found something intriguing with each new chapter. Everywhere that Olin went I wanted to have a deeper look. Palaces, royalty, servitude, slavery, loyalty, trust, respect. You have to pick it up to see it all unfold.

BLURB
As a eunuch in the Ottoman Imperial Harem, Olin has already lost his home, his freedom, and his manhood. His only wish is for a painless death, until he meets Dark Star, a beautiful odalisque who promises to give him his deepest desire. He refuses to believe her claim to possess a jinni in a bottle. But when Dark Star is accused of witchcraft, Olin rubs the bottle in desperation and discovers she’s told the truth. Olin becomes the jinni’s master to save Dark Star, but it's not enough. In the complex world of the Topkapi Palace, where silk pillows conceal knives, sherbets contain poison, and jewels buy loyalty, no one is safe. With each wish, Olin must choose between becoming like the masters he detests or risk his life, his body, and his sanity to break the bonds that tie them all.

"Vividly imagined and achingly beautiful, this is the closest you'll get to an Ottoman harem without a time machine." -- Jessica Cale, Editor of Dirty, Sexy History

"Sensual, magical, and meticulously researched, THE JINNI'S LAST WISH is a scrumptious read." --Heather Webb, international bestselling author of Last Christmas in Paris."

"Hauntingly sensual, The Jinni's Last Wish is an erotic fever dream that lingers long after the last page." -- Mia Hopkins, author of Thirsty

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GUEST POST

Rewriting History by Zenobia Neil

A few weeks ago, I got a trampoline from a neighbor. When I told her I wrote historical fiction she said, “Oh, so you rewrite history?” My first reaction was to feel insulted, as if history were one thing, and I was misrepresenting it with my writing. She hadn’t meant it as a slight, and when I thought about it, historical fiction writers are rewriting history—adding to a narrative that has been solidified as happening one way, when we know that there are many versions of every story.

Some parts of history have been preserved, some literally set in stone, while others were written on paper, on linen, on papyrus and crumbled to dust. Countless others were never recorded at all.

My experience is not the same as yours—that does not make yours (or mine) invalid. This issue in historical texts also reflects modern life. We live in a time where many classic stories are being retold from different perspectives and those perspectives only create depth and a greater understanding of the full story.

I was drawn to write a historical fiction novel about the world inside an Ottoman Harem. I didn’t want to write about a concubine whose only desire is to bed the sultan and give him a son, or about a sultan who has so many women and wars to manage. Instead I chose to write from the perspective of a eunuch, a boy stolen from his people, enslaved, castrated, and sent to the most luxurious palace in the land where he is tormented by desire and neither jewels nor status can cure his aching heart.

I wanted to tell a story that had not been told, about a kind of person who is not often written about. The 17th century Imperial Ottoman Harem inspired me partially because it was a bizarre world of extremes, but also because I wanted to hear the voices of concubines and the black eunuchs who served the Ottoman Empire whose stories were not written down and have been nearly forgotten.

In The Jinni’s Last Wish, my main character, Olin, is a eunuch who has earned the place of assistant to the Chief Black Eunuch, the third most powerful man in the empire. Olin has already lost everything when he meets Dark Star, a mysterious Jewish woman who offers to give him his deepest desire. He scoffs, knowing there’s no way for him to get back what he has lost—not just his manhood, but also his belief in kindness.

In a rich empire where love is all but forbidden and cruelty is the law of the land, where beauty and riches are valued, but lives are not, Olin and Dark Star struggle to be more than eunuch and concubine—though that is how history would remember them. I have no documentation that my characters actually existed because people like them would not have been recorded other than in a book of acquisitions or possibly executions. But people like them lived in a world of dangerous opulence, poisoned sweets, gilded opium pills and death by being sewn into a bag and thrown into the Bosphorus, and I wanted to write them back into history.

Author Info
Zenobia Neil was named after an ancient warrior queen who fought against the Romans. She writes about the mythic past and Greek and Roman gods having too much fun. Zenobia spends her free time imagining interesting people and putting them in terrible situations. She lives with her husband, two children, and dog in an overpriced hipster neighborhood of Los Angeles. Visit her at ZenobiaNeil.com.