The Stolen Queen
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- Pre-Order
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- Expected Jan 7, 2025
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- $14.99
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- Pre-Order
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
From New York Times bestselling author Fiona Davis, an utterly addictive new novel that will transport you from New York City’s most glamorous party to the labyrinth streets of Cairo and back.
Egypt, 1936: When anthropology student Charlotte Cross is offered a coveted spot on an archaeological dig in Egypt’s Valley of the Kings, she leaps at the opportunity. That is until an unbearable tragedy strikes.
New York City, 1978: Nineteen-year-old Annie Jenkins is thrilled when she lands an opportunity to work for former Vogue fashion editor Diana Vreeland, who’s in the midst of organizing the famous Met Gala, hosted at the museum and known across the city as the “party of the year.”
Meanwhile, Charlotte is now leading a quiet life as the associate curator of the Met’s celebrated Department of Egyptian Art. She’s consumed by her research on Hathorkare—a rare female pharaoh dismissed by most other Egyptologists as unimportant.
The night of the gala: One of the Egyptian art collection’s most valuable artifacts goes missing, and there are signs Hathorkare’s legendary curse might be reawakening. Annie and Charlotte team up to search for the missing antiquity, and a desperate hunch leads the unlikely duo to one place Charlotte swore she’d never return: Egypt. But if they have any hope of finding the artifact, Charlotte will need to confront the demons of her past—which may mean leading them both directly into danger.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In this alluring outing from Davis (The Spectacular), two women team up to find an artifact that's gone missing from the Metropolitan Museum of Art. It's 1978 and curator Charlotte Cross, who specializes in Egyptian antiquities, has spent the past three years working to prove female pharaoh Hathorkare was not "universally reviled," and that her visage was not damaged directly after her death, as conventionally believed, but decades later. Charlotte must visit Egypt to prove her thesis, a trip she's avoided because of devastating memories from when she studied abroad there in the 1930s. In a parallel narrative, 19-year-old housekeeper Annie Jenkins dreams of becoming a fashion designer. When she lands a job as the assistant to Met Gala organizer Diana Vreeland, she thinks she's hit the jackpot. But the night of the gala, one of the museum's most famous Egyptian pieces disappears, and Charlotte and Annie join forces to track it down. Their search leads them to Egypt, where Charlotte will finally face her past—if she and Annie aren't killed first. The action-packed novel brims with Davis's customary meticulous research and adds insight to debates over whether artifacts should remain in their country of origin. There's plenty of substance to this rousing adventure.
