The Desert Princess and The Golden Princess by Melanie Cellier

 Here are the third and fourth book in the "Return to the Four Kingdoms" series. The Desert Princess is a retelling of the Aladdin story, though it doesn't actually follow the story very closely. Cassi is captured by desert nomads and taken to a city that exists inside caves.  She joins a rebel group that is searching for a legendary cave of wonders that is supposed to be full of treasure.  With her uncanny ability to memorize underground tunnels and the use of a magic lamp, she must help her new friends free themselves from an ancient curse. (2021, 372 p)

In The Golden Princess, Zaria, as a daughter of a vizier, was raised in a palace along with the royal children.  When tragedy happens, Zaria is driven from the castle and becomes a servant to a demanding and sometimes cruel noblewoman.  Then one day, helping her uncle Ali gather wood, they happens to see a group of thieves enter a magic cave. After the thieves leave, she and her uncle investigate the cave and find vast stores of treasures.  Why do the thieves only leave things in the cave, instead of taking things out? Prince Terek is also investigating the band of thieves, and when he crosses paths with Zaria, they must face the reality of their long estrangement. Can they forgive the past, work together and solve the mystery? (2022, 338 p)

I haven't listened to Melanie Cellier for a while and decided I was ready to go back.  I started listening to The Desert Princess and discovered I had already read it, but neglected to blog about it.  So I went on to The Golden Princess.  I am not as familiar with the story of Ali Baba and the 40 Thieves, but I checked it out online and found this is a pretty good adaptation of the original story. I liked that Zaria was voice of reason when her uncle wanted to take treasure from the cave, and was the one who figured out how to capture the thieves. I always prefer intelligent protagonists who are overcoming adverse situations, to characters who have to overcome their own stupidity. I generally can't read a bunch of Cellier books in a row, because they are all pretty similar to each other, but I liked these well enough that I will probably read the other two books in this series.