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The Forbidden Wish by Jessica Khoury
A clever twist on a timeless legend, The Forbidden Wish follows a cunning jinn and a daring thief whose fates entangle amid desert kingdoms, courtly schemes, and wishes that always demand a price. Lush, romantic, and thrilling, it rekindles the magic of a familiar tale with fresh, empowering spark.
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In The Forbidden Wish, did you enjoy ...
... an Arabian Nights–inspired retelling that blends desert courts, dangerous bargains, and slow-burn romance?
The Wrath & The Dawn by Renée Ahdieh
If the way Zahra and Aladdin’s legend-twisting romance wove through djinni lore and palace intrigue hooked you, you’ll love how The Wrath and the Dawn reimagines Scheherazade’s tale. Like Zahra navigating Caspida’s court and a deadly secret past, Shahrzad enters the caliph’s palace armed with a plan, only to uncover layered motives, perilous politics, and a love story that complicates vengeance.
... a fraught, evolving bond between two opposites that shifts from wary alliance to fierce partnership?
Uprooted by Naomi Novik
You enjoyed how Zahra and Aladdin’s partnership begins as a transactional pact of wishes and turns into something tender and world-shaking despite ancient laws. In Uprooted, Agnieszka and the taciturn wizard known as the Dragon start off prickly and mismatched, but their reluctant teamwork deepens into trust and devotion as they face corrupt magic—echoing the way a bargain in the lamp becomes a love worth defying the rules for.
... a sharp focus on the costs and responsibilities of wielding otherworldly power amid cutthroat politics?
The City Of Brass by S. A. Chakraborty
If Zahra’s struggle over how to use her wish-granting—torn between freeing her kind and betraying Aladdin, while threading Caspida’s factional court—gripped you, The City of Brass dives even deeper. Nahri’s healing magic pulls her into Daevabad’s djinn politics, where every miracle has a price and choosing a side can doom the people you’re trying to save, much like Zahra’s perilous calculus with ancient oaths and forbidden love.
... an intimate, first-person voice that lays bare a heroine’s secrets, bargains, and dangerously romantic entanglements?
Cruel Beauty by Rosamund Hodge
If Zahra’s first-person confessionals—haunted by a long-ago queen and the rules that bind a jinni—drew you in, Cruel Beauty offers a similarly intimate lens. Nyx narrates her own barbed marriage to a cursed ruler, parrying with him through riddles and bargains the way Zahra and Aladdin spar over wishes, while the unfolding truths about the house’s enchantments mirror Zahra’s secrets and the costs of desire.
... a heroine’s profound personal transformation shaped by myth, memory, and a perilous romance?
The Star-Touched Queen by Roshani Chokshi
Zahra’s arc—from a bound, world-weary jinni to someone who claims her own future despite ancient edicts—echoes in The Star-Touched Queen. Maya is thrust into a marriage steeped in prophecy, much like how Zahra hides in human guise among Caspida’s watchmaidens; as Maya uncovers the truth of her realm and her heart, her growth delivers the same kind of emotional payoff Zahra finds when she risks everything for love and freedom.
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