In the society depicted in Amal El-Mohtar‘s And Their Lips Rang with the Sun, there are a group of women who are born with one of the sun’s sacred letters on their forehead, who are trained in the temple and perform elaborate rituals to call the sun every morning. But one of them notices an alluring stranger watching her, and she may sacrifice everything to find out more about him. I really appreciated the feeling that this had of being universal folklore – the author is Lebanese Canadian, but the story could equally well have been taking place in an ancient Central or South American civilization. The framing story – that it’s one half of a conversation an old woman is having in a marketplace – was novel, and definitely added something unique.