JACKAL IN THE GARDEN

A baby girl born with a facial deformity is left to die in the dessert of Persia, but her mother, the number one wife in the harem, rescues the child. Nicknamed Anubis, or Jackal, the child grows up under her mother’s protection, learning things no ordinary girl would know: reading, chess and swordplay. When her mother dies after one of her father’s beatings, the Jackal flees the harem, but not before killing her father. In the dessert, Anubis continues her avenging ways, killing five men who raped and killed a woman they had abducted. Eventually, Anubis finds a safe haven in an artist colony where the famous miniaturist, Bihzad, befriends her. The bold misfit and the modest miniaturist teach each other about coping with the loneliness and sorrow of the world. Ellis creates an exotic atmosphere of sights, sounds, and tastes for her novel about a memorable, if anachronistic, heroine. (Fiction. 12-15)