Book of a Thousand Days

Book of a Thousand Days is a young adult fantasy novel by the American writer Shannon Hale, published in 2007. It is based on the Brothers Grimm tale Maid Maleen and is written as the diary that its heroine keeps.

Dashti begins the diary while she is looking for work after her mother dies of an illness. She is hired as the maid of Lady Saren, the youngest child of the lord of Titor's Garden, at the moment Saren defies her father by refusing to marry Lord Khasar and announcing that she is engaged to Khan Tegus.

Saren's father has the two of them walled into a tower with guards around it, saying they will be released after seven years or when Saren accepts the marriage he wants. The diary records the years inside, the stories and songs Dashti uses to keep her mistress steady, and the visits of Khan Tegus, who cannot see into the tower and whom Saren will not speak to, which leaves Dashti to answer him in her place.