The Wrath and the Dawn (2015) The Rose & the Dagger (2016)
⚡ Pace: medium · 🎭 Emotions: romantic, tense · 🚪 Entry threshold: low · ⭐ Why read: lush atmosphere, addictive romance
At sunrise, a girl is taken to the palace. By the next dawn, she is dead. The boy-king Khalid of Khorasan marries a new bride every night and executes her at daybreak. Whispers call him a monster wearing a crown. But sixteen-year-old Shahrzad refuses to be another name in that list. She volunteers to marry him – not for love, but for vengeance. Her best friend was one of the murdered girls, and Shahrzad intends to end the cycle with her own hands.
On her first night, she does the impossible: she survives. A story she begins before dawn buys her one more day. One night turns into two, then three. But the longer she lives, the more dangerous her heart becomes. Khalid is not the unthinking tyrant she imagined; his silences hide grief, his cruelty hides a curse, and every execution may be a desperate attempt to save his kingdom from a fate worse than death. Hatred turns uncertain. Curiosity turns into something warmer – and far more treacherous.
The world around them trembles: rebellion gathers in the desert, magic stirs beneath forgotten sands, and Shahrzad’s decisions could ignite a war. She is torn between loyalty to those she left behind and the impossible pull toward the boy who should be her enemy. To love him would mean betraying justice. To kill him might destroy the only hope their land has left.
The Wrath and the Dawn blends romance and peril with the urgency of a ticking clock. Every sunrise is a victory; every night is a gamble with her life. Readers will feel the rush of forbidden desire, the weight of secrets too heavy to speak, and the question that steals sleep: when vengeance meets love, which one survives the dawn? This duology continues in The Rose and the Dagger, where promises and sacrifices collide in full light.
📚 Did you know 📖
From childhood, Ahdieh was fascinated by Eastern fairy tales and dreamed of creating “her own Scheherazade.”
Within its first week, the novel climbed into Amazon’s top Young Adult charts.
The author carefully researched Eastern culture and cuisine to craft an authentic atmosphere.
The second half of the duology, The Rose and the Dagger, was released just a year later – a rare speed for YA sagas.
Later, three additional novellas were released to accompany the main novel. Did not gain popularity among fans.
Legend has it: fans nicknamed the novel “a fairy tale with a ravenous appetite” because of its many mouth-watering food descriptions.