Bird of a Thousand Stories
core novel 2025 Once There Was
Record
| First published | 2025 |
|---|---|
| Original language |  EN |
| Work type | novel |
| Canon status | core |
| Reader rating | 4.05 (325 ratings, collected 2026-11-01) |
| First-edition ISBN | 9781665928533 |
| Internal chronology | 2 |
Synopsis
Marjan Dastani, now sixteen, keeps a double life. When she is not at school in San Francisco, she travels the world on missions for the Fells, a wealthy family that trades in magical creatures, caring for the beasts they send her to. She learns that a legendary bird, said to bring stories into the world, is about to be reborn. A newly hatched bird will be easy to harm, and the Fells are a danger to it. Marjan sets out across several countries, among them Turkey, Brazil and Finland, to find the bird before someone with harmful plans does. The closer she grows to the creatures she looks after, the more she risks losing her friendships and her ordinary life. Folk tales again appear between the chapters.
Where it sits
- Universe: Once There Was
- Series: Once There Was core; position 2 of 2 in the series' recorded order
- Author: Kiyash Monsef
Notes
- Published February 4, 2025 as a sequel; it can be read without the first book.
- From the series record (Once There Was): Two novels following Marjan Dastani, a young healer of mythical creatures.
Neighbouring works
Publication order and internal chronology are tracked as two separate orderings, but they resolve to the exact same sequence for this book, so one combined line is shown instead of two identical ones.
- Reading order, within the series Once There Was: position 2 of 2: previous Once There Was (2023)
Sources
- Simon & Schuster series page
- MIT Press Bookstore
- Kirkus Reviews, Bird of a Thousand Stories
- Pamela Kramer review
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