The Storyteller, The Djinn, & The Prince | A WIP Re-Introduction

Synopsis

The crown prince has been kidnapped by the djinn, and his mother will stop at nothing to find him and bring him home, even if it means marching into the realm of the Unseen on what everyone insists is a hopeless mission. He's gone, she is told. Grieve him, for he is as good as dead. If he is returned to you, he will not be the same child you knew.

But he isn't dead, and Queen Sirin refuses to accept his loss, refuses to grieve him, even if she is called mad for her insistence that he is alive, for her determination to rescue him. She cares not that no one has ever returned from such a venture. She's going to save her son or die trying.

Enter Halah; the only person taken by the djinn who claims to have escaped them, rather than been returned. Only she can lead Queen Sirin and her cousin, Raoul, into the Unseen realm and guide them through the kingdom of the djinn...so when Sirin pleads for her help, she agrees.

She can't abandon a child, even one she doesn't know. Even if it does mean returning to the last place in all the realms she ever wants to see again...

Sixteen-ish years of working on this wip and I finally have a title! My favourite thing about the new title is that it all refers to multiple characters, which is SO fun to me. Spoilers though, so I shan't say more about that.

The title came to me just after suhoor (~6 am) in March, and I was so excited I immediately jotted it down in my phone before I fell asleep. Legends of Mourra was always the series title, but the volume I've been working on is the first in a series of standalone novels set in this world I've created!


For the longest time, I'd been planning for LofM to be a duology + a spin-off. But as volume no.1's story changed (and as I've changed as a writer), I've come to realize and accept that this is going to be a self-contained story and it works so much better that way. I've finally fully let go of the last remnants of the Grand™ Plot spanning entire decades that I'd initially conceived of. The Storyteller, The Djinn, & The Prince will be very much in the vein of a tale from Arabian Nights, self-contained and (hopefully) satisfying.

I've also finally allowed this to be truly my MC Halah's story, which is reflected in the title (she's the storyteller....or, one of them...). Weird, I know, but I'd initially wanted to write this from the pov of a 'sidekick' to the 'main heroes', but that meant I'd resisted actually letting Halah be a fully realized character. It made my story feel very flat and surface level. I only belatedly realized I could still make it seem so from the perspective of the events that occur in-universe, while still allowing Halah to be the main character of her own life, as we all our to ourselves.

I'll keep the tags I've been using because I'm used to them, so if you want more updates you can keep an eye on the #lofm.wip and #lofm.inspo tags specifically or #kaatibawrites tag more generally on my tumblr.

Thanks for reading and happy reading and writing!