Enjoyable story of a woman in a 12 century Islamic world, rejecting the marriage arranged for her, and escaping her family, ending up leading a group of fighters under Saladin, fighting the Crusaders

Adventure in the time of the Crusaders. Khalidah runs away to avoid an unwanted marriage and finds love. Interesting story which includes a lot of the culture of the time. ( )

I found Sand Daughter by Sarah Bryant to be a very disappointing read. Both it’s questionable history and silly love story made this a difficult read to plow through. I did complete it however, mostly because I was stuck on a two hour ferry ride with no other reading material,

Set in the Middle East, this is the story of a daughter of a Bedouin chieftan and a mysterious mother, Khalidah escapes an arranged marriage to her cousin by trusting a strange musician who promises to lead her to safety to her mother’s people. She rides away with him and they fall in love and eventually she finds herself in Afghanistan, a member of a mysterious warrior clan who call themselves the Jinn. Through a long series of adventures, she eventually ends up leading a troop of warriors to fight with Salah ad-Din against the Franks.

I really can’t find any reason to recommend this book which I admit I chose simply for it’s beautiful cover. I guess this shows that the old saying of not judging a book by the cover certainly held true here. ( )

I undertook this because it’s set on the Muslim side of the Crusades. Mostly in Crusades fiction we get only a cursory glimpse of the societies I’m more interested in and that’s frustrating. Here it’s the Franj who are only seen from the inside now and then. So, I loved the setting straight away, as we are plunged into Bedu tents, where the adventure starts. I’d call this an adventure, more than a war story. With Bilal we spend our time in Salah ad-Din’s camp, but with Khalidah we travel through Persia to the Hindu Kush, in search of the legendary Qaf.

I guess it isn’t straight hf, since she makes up the land of Qaf – as she tells us in her note, from Pashtun, Kalash, Mongolian and Tibetan cultures. Then again I might argue that Hidden Lands proliferated in the time and place – from Prester John to Shambala. The Crusaders expected Prester John from these parts... here it’s the Jinn who turn out to be not demon desert creatures but a human force who come in aid of Salah ad-Din.

The adventure is increasingly thoughtful, with heroism and idealism sadly misguided, and victory proved sickening. For an end to crusades, she puts on the title page, and she doesn’t write to excite.

It’s nicely written, with lovely description. I felt it fell into stockness now and then. Khalidah’s love story is quite low-key, but when it is at the fore, she seems to drop five years in age. Perhaps you do. Bilal’s was more overt, and boy-meets-boy – the Sultan’s son (a sixth son and unimportant). This one was a bit soppy for me. However, boy-boy wasn’t uncommon and you don’t find it often in the fiction – like Crusades from the Muslim side.

Khalidah is an independent sort who fights. So do the girls of Qaf. I see people shake their heads at girls who fight as our 20th or 21st century intrusions, and so, I’m going to put this in the witness box: [The Adventures of Sayf Ben Dhi Yazan: An Arab Folk Epic]. It says at least there’s nothing modern about the love of such stories.

It’s terrific to have this novel, amidst your usual Crusades fare. For me there were rougher patches, for which I gave four stars. ( )

I read Sarah Bryant's Sand Daughter for the Historical Fiction Reading Challenge. It takes place during the time of the Crusades while Saladin is trying to unite the Arab world to fight the French who have control of the Holy Land. However, the story is about a young Bedouin woman named Khalidah, who runs away with a stranger in order to avoid marriage to a man she despises. There is a sub-plot about Khalidah's childhood friend Bilal, whom she really loves. The descriptions about the Crusades are seen through Bilal's point of view. The fact that he is gay and in love with one of Saladin's sons, who is also gay, adds to the drama.

Khalidah's stranger is a traveling minstrel named Sulayman. His intention is to take Khalidah back to her mother's tribe, the Jinn, but Khalidah does not know this until they have traveled halfway there. Upon arrival Khalidah meets her grandfather who informs her that she is heir to the tribe's leadership. She now has to decide whether she will accept her role and whether she is willing to lead her tribe in a war againt the Crusaders.

I thought it odd that Saladin's son was gay and that Saladin knew about his romances. This would not have been allowed in an Islamic society. However, people have been gay since the beginning of mankind so many folks must have ignored it. It is unusual, though, to read about the Crusades from the perspective of a gay Muslim. Sand Daughter is an easy read. If you don't read it in one day, you can pick up the action where you left off pretty quickly. I loved the Khalidah character but have questions about why she made certain decisions in her life. The author did not go into detail her thought processes and I couldn't believe that she left her home to travel through the desert with a male stranger. The Suleyman character's personality and motives were revealed to the reader in a mysterious way. Ms. Bryant should have done the same with her main character. Sand Daughter was still an enjoyable read and I recommend it to historical fiction fans. ( )