Black Ships
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- $12.99
Publisher Description
The World is ending. One by one the mighty cities are falling: to earthquakes, to flood and to raiders - on both land and sea.
In a time of war and doubt, Gull is an oracle, a mouthpiece of the gods. Daughter of a slave plundered from fallen Troy, she was chosen as a child to serve the Lady of the Dead, and it is her fate to counsel kings.
When nine black ships appear as foretold in her dreams, captained by an exiled Trojan prince, Gull must make her choice. She must decide between her sacred calling and the most perilous adventure - joining her mother's people in their desperate flight from slavery. From the doomed bastions of the City of Pirates to the temples of Byblos, from the intrigues of the Egyptian court to the haunted caves beneath Mount Vesuvius, only Gull can guide Prince Aeneas on his quest. And only she can dare the gates of the Underworld itself to lead him to his destiny.
In the last shadowed days of the Age of Bronze, one woman dreams of the world beginning anew. This is her story.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Graham's exquisite and bleak debut views the events of The Aeneid through the oracle Gull, a disciple of the Lady of the Dead. Taken to the Lady's temple after being lamed in a chariot accident, Gull quickly displays her power to see the future. Her first vision black ships fleeing a burning city lets her recognize Aeneas when he arrives after the fall of Wilusa (the Hittite name for Troy), hoping to save those sold into slavery. Gull joins Aeneas, and they take the few remaining people of Wilusa on a glorious journey to find their scattered brethren and a site where they can found a new city. Historians will admire Graham's deft blending of Virgil's epic story and historical fact, most notably the creation of Egyptian princess Basetamon to take the place of magnificently anachronistic Dido. Graham's spare style focuses on action, but fraught meaning and smoldering emotional resonance overlay her deceptively simple words.
