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.
- ISBN10 0593067045
- ISBN13 9780593067048
- Publish Date 21 July 2011 (first published 12 May 2011)
- Publish Status Out of Print
- Out of Print 28 February 2013
- Publish Country GB
- Publisher Random House USA Inc
- Imprint Bantam Press
- Format Paperback (UK Trade)
- Pages 448
- Language English