Babylonia
A Novel
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4.0 • 31 Ratings
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
DELUXE HARDCOVER EDITION—featuring stunning printed edges, luxe gold foil, and full color endpapers giving you a peek into the gripping world of Ancient Assyria!
From the author of the bestselling Clytemnestra comes another intoxicating excursion into ancient history, painting the brutal and captivating empire of gods and men, and the one queen destined to rule them all.
A common woman. The governor she married. The king who loved them both.
Babylonia across the centuries has become the embodiment of lust, excess, and dissolute power that ruled Ancient Assyria. In this world you had to kill to be king. Or, in the case of Semiramis, an orphan raised on the outskirts of an empire:
Queen.
Nothing about Semiramis's upbringing could have foretold her legacy. But when she meets a young representative of the new Assyrian king, a prophecy unfolds before her, one that puts her in the center of a brutal world and in the hearts of two men - one who happens to be king.
Now a risen lady in a court of vipers, Semiramis becomes caught in the politics and viciousness of ancient Assyria. Instead of bartering with fate, Semiramis trains in war and diplomacy. And with each move, she rises in rank, embroiled in a game of power, desire, love, and betrayal, until she can ascend to the only position that will ever keep her safe.
In her second novel, Costanza Casati brilliantly weaves myth and ancient history together to give Semiramis, the only female ruler of the Assyrian Empire, a voice, charting her captivating ascent to a throne no one promised her.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Casati (Clytemnestra) chronicles the ruthless rise of Assyrian queen Semiramis in this masterful saga. In 823 BCE, the Assyrian empire is in the midst of a civil war between Assur and Ninus, two opposing sons of the late King Shalmaneser. The conflict extends to Eber-Nari, the western province where Semiramis was raised by Simmas, a shepherd, after she was abandoned as an infant by her mother, who then died by suicide. The fearless and resourceful Semiramis views Shalmaneser's illegitimate son, Onnes, as a way out of her harsh life, and after framing the abusive Simmas for theft, she persuades Onnes to take her as his wife to the capital city of Kalhu. There, Semiramis continues to challenge norms, training in combat and navigating palace intrigue fomented by Ninus's mother and by a rival for power who commands the Assyrian army. Five years after Semiramis leaves Eber-Nari, the Assyrians come under threat from Babylonia, and her machinations culminate in her becoming Assyria's leader. Casati excels at depicting the stark brutality of the period, contrasting matter-of-fact descriptions of impalings and mutilations with Semiramis's determination to survive: "To die is to travel to the land of no return. She has seen that land from afar: it waits for her every time her father strikes her." No matter how much cruelty Semiramis dispenses, Casati never loses sight of what drives her heroine to achieve a status where she need not obey anyone else. Admirers of Robert Graves's Claudius novels will be riveted.
