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New Books Network Interview: Fiona Davis

cplesley

Against a starry sky above New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art, a woman in ancient Egyptian dress wearing a pharaoh's crown is limned against the darkness; cover of Fiona Davis's The Stolen Queen

One thing I love about hosting a New Books Network interview is the chance to read the work of an author I haven’t previously encountered whose books I just love. The Stolen Queen by Fiona Davis is one such novel. It smoothly combines historical fiction, mystery, crimes both past and present, family, and friendship between women. Couple that with an often-maligned female pharaoh of ancient Egypt and a stunning piece of jewelry at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, and how could I resist? Read on and listen to our interview to find out more.

And since during our conversation we discuss the fun of seeing characters change over the course of a lifetime, don’t forget to check out my own earlier post, “Watching Characters Grow.”

As usual, the rest of this post comes from New Books in Historical Fiction.

Charlotte Cross has built a satisfying career as assistant curator in the Department of Egyptian Art at New York’s Metropolitan Museum. It’s 1978, the museum has just opened the Temple of Dendur and is preparing to become the last US stop for the King Tutankhamun exhibit, and Charlotte at sixty has almost completed her long-planned article on Hathorkare, one of ancient Egypt’s few female pharaohs. Between that and a steady romantic relationship with the playwright Mark Schrader, life looks pretty good.

 

But if things stopped there, the story would end before it began. In The Stolen Queen, Davis nimbly juggles three threads and two narrators: Charlotte in 1978, Charlotte in 1936, and Annie Jenkins in 1978. What connects them, besides a shared interest in Egyptology, is the Cerulean Queen, part of an ancient statue of Hathorkare and the stolen queen of the title.

 

The theft of the Cerulean Queen and the mystery surrounding it presumably explain the publisher’s decision to describe the book as an Agatha Christie throwback and a heist novel. It is those things, but what drew me in and kept me reading is the rich characterization of both Charlotte and Annie as they struggle, independently and together, to come to terms with their own pasts and plot a sustainable and satisfying future.

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© 2015 by C. P. Lesley. All rights reserved.

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