Priestesses and Prostitutes, a boxed set that contains a novella and three novels by members of the Historical Fiction Authors Cooperative, is only 99 cents until March 31. This boxed set can be found on Kindle, Kobo, iTunes, and Nook.
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Two women struggle for survival and understanding in the wake of Mt. Vesuvius’s eruption in The Whore by Stephanie Dray. A young Egyptian woman is chosen as the Pharaoh’s wife, igniting the fury of her sister in Libbie Hawker’s The Sekhmet Bed. In The Year-God’s Daughter by Rebecca Lochlann, a young Cretan bull-dancer is caught between two fated lovers. And in Cheri Lasota’s award-winning Artemis Rising, two ancient mythologies—Tristan and Isolde, and Alpheus and Arethusa—spin out against the backdrop of the Azores Islands in the late nineteenth century.
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Is Ahmose’s divine gift a blessing or a curse?
The second daughter of the Pharaoh, Ahmose has always dreamed of a quiet life as a priestess, serving Egypt’s gods, ministering to the people of the Two Lands. But when the Pharaoh dies without an heir, she is given instead as Great Royal Wife to the new king, a soldier of common birth. For Ahmose is god-chosen, gifted with the ability to read dreams, and it is her connection to the gods which ensures the new Pharaoh his right to rule.
Ahmose’s elder sister Mutnofret has been raised to expect the privileged station of Great Royal Wife; her rage at being displaced cannot be soothed. As Ahmose fights the currents of Egypt’s politics and Mutnofret’s vengeful anger, her youth and inexperience carry her beyond her depth and into the realm of sacrilege.
To right her wrongs and save Egypt from the gods’ wrath, Ahmose must face her most visceral fear: bearing an heir. But the gods of Egypt are exacting, and even her sacrifice may not be enough to restore the Two Lands to safety.
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For time beyond memory, Crete has sacrificed its king to ensure good harvests, ward off earthquakes, and please the Goddess. Men compete in brutal trials to win the title of Zagreus, the sacred bull-king, even though winning means they’ll die in a year.
Two brothers from predatory Mycenae set out to thwart the competition and their deaths as they search for exploitable weaknesses in this rich, coveted society.
Hindering their goal is the seductive and fearless Cretan princess, Aridela, an uncommon woman neither brother can resist, and ancient prophecies, which predict that any threat to her people will spark Goddess Athene’s terrible wrath in a calamity of unimaginable consequences.
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Torn between her father’s Catholicism and her mother’s Pagan beliefs, Eva finally chooses Paganism. She accepts the name of Arethusa but learns too late that her life will mirror the Greek nymph’s tragic fate. When they sail to the Azores Islands, her mother tells her that the fulfillment of her destiny rests with Diogo, the shipowner’s son. But Eva sees a vision of another…
When the ship founders off the Azores, Tristan, a young Azorean, saves her. Destined to be with Diogo and aching for Tristan’s forbidden love, Eva must somehow choose between them, or fate will soon choose for her.
