Queen of Kings
  • Published: 18 September 2012
  • ISBN: 9780857500397
  • Imprint: Bantam
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 496
  • RRP: $24.99
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Queen of Kings

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EBook
3 Oct 2011
Paperback
18 Sep 2012
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Passion and seduction, witches and warriors, ancient history and mythology combine to bring the timeless story of Cleopatra to life like never before in this thrillingly original and spellbinding debut...

What if Cleopatra didn't die in 30 BC alongside her beloved Mark Antony? What if she couldn't die? What if she became immortal? Queen of Kings is the first instalment in an epic, epoch-spanning story of one woman's clash with the Roman Empire and the gods of Egypt in a quest to save everything she holds dear.
As Octavian Caesar (later Augustus) and his legions march into Alexandria, Cleopatra, Queen of Egypt, summons Sekhmet, the goddess of Death and Destruction, in a desperate attempt to resurrect her husband, who has died by his own hand, and save her kingdom. But this deity demands something in return: Cleopatra's soul. Against her will, Egypt's queen becomes a blood-craving, shape-shifting immortal: a not-quite-human manifestation of a goddess who seeks to destroy the world. Battling to preserve something of her humanity, Cleopatra pursues Octavian back to Rome - she desires revenge, she yearns for her children - and she craves blood...
It is a dangerous journey she must make. She will confront witches, mythic monsters, the gods of ancient Greece and Rome, and her own, warring nature. She will kill but she will also find mercy. She will raise an extraordinary army to fight her enemies, and she will see her beloved Antony again. But to save him from the endless torment of Hades, she must make a devastating sacrifice.
Brutally authentic historical fiction meets the darkest of fantasy in Maria Dahvana Headley's extraordinary debut novel about the most famous woman in history: Cleopatra, Queen of Kings.
  • Published: 18 September 2012
  • ISBN: 9780857500397
  • Imprint: Bantam
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 496
  • RRP: $24.99
Categories:
Share…

About the author

Maria Dahvana Headley

Maria Dahvana Headley is a #1 New York Times bestselling author and editor, most recently of the novels Magonia, Aerie, and Queen of Kings and the memoir The Year of Yes. With Kat Howard she is the co-author of The End of the Sentence, and with Neil Gaiman she is the coeditor of Unnatural Creatures. Her short stories have been shortlisted for the Shirley Jackson, Nebula, and World Fantasy Awards, and her work has been supported by the MacDowell Colony and by Arte Studio Ginestrelle, where the first draft of this book was written. She was raised with a wolf and a pack of sled dogs in the high desert of rural Idaho and now lives in Brooklyn.

portrait photo of Maria Dahvana Headley

Praise for Queen of Kings

A page-turner: an epic historical thriller that combines a great love story with a slew of witches, gods, ghosts and classical monsters. Add the Roman army and Cleopatra and it is obvious: this is the book readers have been waiting for

DANIELLE TRUSSONI, bestselling author of "Angelology"

Serpents, sorcerers, sex! Egypt, Rome, Greece! A brilliantly energetic smorgasbord. Gird your loins, dear readers, because Queen of Kings is on the loose! Hug your loved ones, tuck your head firmly between your knees, and hope that you're praying to the correct god. Because if you're not? Well, read this book to discover your fate...

GARTH STEIN. bestelling author of "The Art of Racing in the Rain"

Like a hipper and darker 21st century Anne Rice. If you like your history mixed with fiction, and full of sex and magic and violence - and let's face it, that's how we all prefer it - then you're in for a hell of a ride

ED BRUBAKER, writer of "The Death of Captain America"

It's rare that a first novel is so magical, so dark, so well-researched, so smart or so compelling. Queen of Kings is a powerful work of the imagination, stalking the murky, dangerous territory between Anne Rice's Queen of the Damned and Robert Graves' I, Claudius and should appeal to those who like their historical fiction and those who crave dark magics and sharp teeth in the night. I can't wait to read what Ms Headley writes next

NEIL GAIMAN

Mixes dark fantasy and historical fiction with large dollops of American Gods-style mythological bricolage... It's to Headley's credit that she makes this audaciously naff premise not only work, but work well... This is a shamelessly fun pop-historical blockbuster

SFX Magazine