"What if an empire of Jewish warriors that really existed in the Middle Ages had never fallen--and was the only thing standing between Hitler and his conquest of Russia? Eastern Europe, August 1942. The Khazar kaganate, an isolated nation of Turkic warrior Jews, lies between the Pontus Euxinus (the Black Sea) and the Khazar Sea (the Caspian). It also happens to lie between a belligerent nation to the west that the Khazars call Germania--and a city the rest of the world calls Stalingrad. After years of Jewish refugees streaming across the border from Europa, fleeing the war, Germania launches its siege of Khazaria. Only Esther, the daughter of the nation's chief policy adviser, sees the ominous implications of Germania's disregard for Jewish lives. Only she realizes that this isn't just another war but an existential threat. After witnessing the enemy warplanes' first foray into sovereign Khazar territory, Esther knows she must fight for her country. But as the elder daughter in a traditional home, her urgent question is how. Before daybreak one fateful morning, she embarks on a perilous journey across the open steppe. She seeks a fabled village of Kabbalists who may hold the key to her destiny: their rumored ability to change her into a man so that she may convince her entire nation to join in the fight for its very existence against an enemy like none Khazaria has ever faced before. The Book of Esther is a profound saga of war, technology, mysticism, power, and faith. This novel--simultaneously a steampunk Joan of Arc and a genre-bending tale of a counterfactual Jewish state by a writer who invents worlds "out of Calvino or Borges" (The New Yorker)--is a stunning achievement. Reminiscent of Michael Chabon's The Yiddish Policemen's Union and Philip Roth's The Plot Against America, The Book of Esther reaffirms Barton's place as one of her generation's most gifted storytellers"--

Arabian Nights 1914 begins in 1914...the world is on the precipice of a World War. The great powers, Germany and the Ottoman Empire face each other. Ouda is a small Arab desert kingdom, poor and isolated. Zade, a direct descendant of Scheherazade, is convinced that Ouda is doomed unless it becomes a modern, secular state and adopts science and technology. Her king's model must be the quintessential modern monarch, Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany. The Oudian Ambassador in Berlin sends books, documents, information praising the virtues of the forward-looking Kaiser. Late June, 1914. Zade learns about the assassination in Sarajevo of the Austrian heir to the throne. The world war must be stopped. She immediately decides to go to Berlin, seduce the Kaiser and preserve the peace. Full of intrigue, seduction, exotic characters, where the 'seductive middle east meets the modern west Arabian Nights 1914 is a totally engrossing novel. Like his previous works, Eric Koch introduces the reader to a by-gone but crucially important historical world. All his characters are well researched and reflect the reality of the period. In the master's hands, they are plausible, human and fully entertaining.