You’d think that this is some sort of marketing ploy, right on the heels of the huge success of 50 Shades of Grey, but no. The story is like this: A German romance novelist that goes by the name of Penny Jordan, had a thing or two for oriental romance. Actually, she had a thing for romances set in the Arabian Gulf. Actually, she had a thing for rich Arabian men in general, I think. At least one of her novels is set in Kuwait and is advertised as romantic and somewhat erotic.

The novel is called “Magical Nights in Kuwait” yes, you read that right, we have magical nights here all the time, and why shouldn’t we? The plot is as follows: A sexy orphan by the name of Felicia Cordon falls in love with a handsome Kuwaiti guy named Faisal, after they both discover they shared the same hobby of bird photography. OKKKKK. Despite Faisal’s smugness and utter self-satisfaction, she decides to follow her heart and go to Kuwait to persuade Faisal’s uncle ‘Sheikh Rashid’ of their love. ‘Sheikh Rashid’ doesn’t take kindly to Felicia, because he suspects that the beautiful European nymphomaniac is only after his nephew for his money.

Also, after translating a few more pages of the novel, the entire novel is in German if you haven’t guessed already, I discovered that the name ‘Felicia’ was no misnomer and was used in more than one occasion “allegorically” .. ahem.

Please bare in mind that my German is rusty (I don’t even speak German) and I relied heavily (read: entirely) on Google Translate to get you the whole plot, but yeah its probably as weird as it reads.

I have a copy of the book in PDF form if anyone is interested (what is wrong with you?) it is vintage and hard to find after all. You can also check out her other novels “The Lovers of Sheikhs” (I am not making this up) and her series of 1001 Nights of dreams, set in modern Arabia from Amazon Germany.

Here is a link to the Kindle version. (seriously why are you clicking?)

On a final sad note, it seems the author ‘Penny Jordan’ died recently leaving behind her the legacy of what is perhaps the first erotic, published, novel set in Kuwait.

The original title of the book, for those interested is: ‘Betörende nächte In Kuwait’ which can also be translated to Beguiled in Kuwait, I guess.

The cover of “Magical Nights in Kuwait”