The Dream of a Thousand Nights - Shira Anthony 3.5 stars

Neriah, the crown prince of Tazier, is running for his life after witnessing his mother's death at the hands of his father's orders. Tamir, a young Jinn, heals Neriah when Neriah becomes injured and unconscious. Tamir has loved Neriah from afar for years which is forbidden for any Jinn and so after he saves Neriah and lets him go with a cleansed memory of their encounter, Tamir is punished. Losing his powers for loving a human is the least of Tamir's problems when they meet again ten years later after Tamir's enforced slavery. Neriah is none the wiser of their previous encounter when they were young but that doesn't stop the two from building a relationship off the lust and affection that they can't help but feel. With Neriah trying to get revenge on his father and Tamir's old mentor, Amir, looking to force Tamir back into his life could possibly create a betrayal that just might break their fledgling bond.

This book is hard for me to rate. I thought the plot was a very good one. From the beginning I was fascinated with it, with Neriah and Tamir's characters. It was easy for me to feel for both Neriah and Tamir while at the same time enjoying how the story was progressing. The beginning was truly awesome and I just could not put the book down. There was a bit too much sex for my liking, hot sex yes, but that didn't derail me from enjoying it. It just made me think, "Geez, they're going at it, again??".

In the middle, however, my enjoyment of the story started to flag because something happens that I truly did not agree with. I felt like Tamir and Neriah were really starting to explore the relationship Tamir had lost a part of his life over and then 'it' happens. 'It' being the fact that Tamir gets kidnapped by his old master, Amir, and then because Tamir no longer has his powers for saving Neriah all those years ago, Amir is able to bewitch Tamir into wanting him. I could live with that if I know Tamir truly does not want it but the moaning and groaning he gave willingly even though he thinks before any sex that he doesn't want to lose Neriah kind of made me feel like his love for Neriah wasn't a legit feeling in some ways. Call me a hopeless romantic but you'd think since Tamir risked his life to save Neriah all those years ago and put up with a hell of a life for a decade, as a former Jinn, he'd have some way of either rejecting Amir or at least controlling his cries of pleasure. Honestly, I could deal with knowing that Amir and Tamir were having sex but I did not need to see it. There is only one scene that needed to be shown between Amir and Tamir but aside from that, none of the sex had to be shown, IMO. I felt like there was more sex between Amir and Tamir than Neriah and Tamir and that right there is just not right, at least that's how I feel. To say I was annoyed would be an understatement, though. It was hard to adjust my feelings from such fascination to a hint of disgust and a lot of disappointment, as sad as that is to say.

However, the very, very end was great. I truly loved it because while it did not seem like everything would turn out good, Amir, in the end, does something spectacular that I never thought he'd do and that soothed my annoyance with him and Tamir a little bit. It gave me the happy, warm and fuzzy feeling that I lost hope for because of the troubles I had in the middle.

All in all, I did mostly enjoy the story. There was just something about it, even when I was pissed off, that made me want to keep reading and figure out what would happen next. I loved the beginning, was frustrated in the middle but still loved the ending. I loved the world it's set in, the characters it revolves around and the conflict it resolves. I truly did like this book and I'd be looking forward to seeing more of Neriah and Tamir or any other Jinn and human. Just, hopefully, without what happens during the middle of this book to happen again. I liked the author's writing style and will definitely be reading more from her in the future.