The War of the Crowns: A Novel of Ancient Egypt

The War of the Crowns: A Novel of Ancient Egypt (Magnificent Queen of Freedom Trilogy): "Jacq continues his excellent Queen Liberty trilogy with this second installment chronicling the reign of Queen Ahotep in the seventeenth century B.C.E. After the brutish Hyksos have overrun most of Egypt, Ahotep stands virtually alone. Secretly training a cadre of crack soldiers, she single-handedly fosters a revolution. Despite the fact that she loses both her husband and her son, she continues the valiant fight for Egyptian freedom, resolving to prepare her younger son to become pharaoh and unmask the treacherous Hyksos spy who continues to plague her."

Gilded Chamber: A Novel of Queen Esther

Gilded Chamber: A Novel of Queen Esther: "Xerxes banishes his wife Vashti and sets about finding a new wife by claiming all the young virgins in the kingdom of Persia for his perusal and delectation. Esther, born Hadassah, is a young Jewish orphan, remanded to the custody of her cousin Mordechai, to whom she is betrothed. Mordechai attends to the King at the Palace, but no one knows that he is a Jew. He warns Hadassah to take the name Esther when she is swept up by the King's edict, and not to reveal her heritage.
After a year of being pampered by court slaves, Esther is presented to the King. He is instantly smitten and makes her his Queen. sther longs for Mordechai but succumbs to the blandishments of the King to save herself from being sent to the soldiers--a horrible fate. In the course of Palace intrigue, Haman, a truly evil man who is viewed as a trusted servant of the King, plots to kill Mordechai, who will not bow to him, and ultimately to kill all the Jews in the Kingdom."

The Ptolemies

The Ptolemies: "Sprott chronicles the calamitous, ill-fated reign of the first Greek pharaoh of Egypt in his fascinating but overstuffed third novel, a historical reconstruction that traces the rise and fall of Ptolemy, the alleged son of King Philip of Macedonia. The initial chapters chart Ptolemy's ascension from soldier to leader in Egypt, where he becomes a satrap, keeping the body of the late Alexander the Great around as a good luck charm. After consolidating his power, Ptolemy agonizes over the decision to declare himself pharaoh while facing military challenges from a parade of enemies; he also must overcome emotional fallout from his exhausting relationship with his two wives, Berenike and Eurydice. "