title: The Golden Sandal: A Middle Eastern Cinderella Story
author:  Rebecca Hickox 
description: What do you get when you take Cinderella's glass slipper and transport it to the Middle East? <i>The Golden Sandal</i>! Rebecca Hickox's delightful retelling of an Iraqi folktale "The Little Red Fish and the Clog of Gold" has all the makings of any good Cinderella story--the mean stepmother, the young oppressed girl, a big shindig, a kind, magical creature who helps the girl dress up for the event, an enamored young man, a lost-and-found shoe, and the promise of a happy ending. However, with the Arabian twist, the girl's name is Maha, the benevolent creature is a fish, the shindig is a "grand henna," and the shoe that ultimately saves Maha from a cruel fate is none other than a golden sandal.
zlib_text: > MARITIMA
  
  NATALIE DEBRABANDERE
  
  Copyright © 2021 Natalie Debrabandere
  
  All rights reserved.
  
  The moral rights of the author have been asserted.
  
  This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade
  or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the
  author’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in
  which it is published or without a similar condition, including this
  condition, being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
  
  ISBN: 9798645646158
  
  **DEDICATION**
  
  For Alain
  
  X
  
  **ACKNOWLEDGMENTS**
  
  Thanks to Peter again for a wonderful design!
  
  And to all my readers: as always, thank you for reading and reviewing in all
  the good places.
  
  I appreciate you greatly!
  
  > PROLOGUE
  
  > -I-
  
   ** _16_** ** _th_** ** _May 2019 – Two-thirty a.m. – A remote location, 40kms
  South-East of the famous UNESCO World Heritage Site of Palmyra, Syria._**
  
  Jessica Hunter was completely dead to the world; sound asleep, with not even a
  trace 