Fatima’s Story: The Complete Novellas
Evelyn M. Exley
Independently Published (2026)
ISBN: 978-1954448407
Reviewed by S. Mazher Rizvi for Reader Views (08/2026)
Love is one of the most complex, deeply felt, and multifaceted experiences in human life. It touches almost every aspect of human nature. Love has been defined and explained from different perspectives, including psychological, biological, philosophical, and practical. Whatever the perspective, the fact remains that love cannot bloom in isolation. It has to have an environment to nurture.
Author Evelyn M. Exley has created the perfect Eden for love to flourish in her book, Fatima’s Story: The Complete Novellas, part of A Tale of King Justice series.
Romantic fiction has been written a zillion times in urban cities, rural areas, villages, mountains, and rivers, and in fantasy. Fatima’s Story unfolds in fantasy lands of the 18th century. An era of kings, queens, princes, and princesses clad in heavily layered aristocratic court fashion and with names that could be French, African, English, or Arabic. Amidst names such as Deut-wah, Manuel-pah, Aston, Pelles, and Donovan, the name Fatima stands out as the narrator of the story and the pivot around which this story revolves. The name Fatima is easily traceable to Arabic descent and holds no secrets. The word itself implies exemplary patience, strength, and devotion.
A deal is struck between Fatima’s dad, King Aston of Rainier, and King Deut-wah of Dungh Ga Da, a neighboring kingdom across the seas. King Deut-wah offers an alliance between the two kingdoms to save the Kingdom of Rainier, threatened by an exile and a traitor who vows to kill Fatima, the would-be heir to the Kingdom of Rainier, and King Aston, and take over Rainier. The alliance would be guaranteed through the marriage of Deut-wah with Fatima. King Aston is torn between his love for his daughter and the security of his kingdom. Despite Fatima’s resistance to the proposal, her Father agrees to the betrothal, and Fatima is sent off secretly to the Forgotten Palace, as it was named, to live in complete safety and security against the dreaded exile and traitor, until her marriage to King Deut-wah.
It is in the loneliness and confines of the Forgotten Palace that love appears and blooms into unadulterated togetherness and longing. As always, the road to ultimate happiness is deceitful and filled with tears, pain, and anguish, as separation from her newfound love is forced upon Fatima, taking her on a roller coaster ride through treachery, friendship, loyalty, and the unmasking of reality.
The author Evelyn M. Exley has a remarkable style of writing a love story as a pure, untainted feeling. No lust, no sexual impulses, and no obscenity. Exley offers a mature yet clean narrative for all readers who like romance spiked with mystery, suspense, and a twist of fate. The book is also typified by the fact that despite a milieu of kings, queens, warriors, and slave traders, there is no bloodshed to tarnish the sanctity of love.
At a Glance: A clean fantasy romance set in an 18th-century-inspired world of rival kingdoms, royal alliances, and arranged marriage. A princess sent into hiding discovers unexpected love while navigating danger, separation, betrayal, and questions of loyalty and duty.
Best for Readers Who Enjoy: clean fantasy romance, royal romance, arranged marriage stories, forbidden love, palace intrigue, romantic suspense, fictional kingdoms, love versus duty, low-violence fantasy, historical-inspired fantasy