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Queen of Lies
New Rome. An unholy trinity.
9th Century Constantinople. A new age of prosperity dawns amid war, invasion and religious upheaval.
Viking-Greek Empress Eudokia Ingerina tells her sons the real story behind the myth of their fathers. It is a tale of humiliation, cunning, intrigue ... and love!
Vassilis, a village lad, loses his family to marauders in the forests of eastern Macedonia. He must learn quickly to survive, both in the wilds and at the Bulgar court. Eventually he finds his way to Constantinople, where he gains the favor of the young Emperor Michael, and Ingerina, Michael's mistress.
Michael resents his mother, the Regent Theodora, and his guardian, the Eunuch Theoktistos, who forced him to marry against his will. His uncle, the brilliant but degenerate Vardas, returns from exile and encourages Michael's more capricious side, only to fall foul of both Patriarch and Pope.
As the Roman court lurches from crisis to crisis, Michael, Vassilis and Ingerina find common purpose, friendship and affection in one another. But now Ingerina must convince both her lovers that her sons have a right to the imperial throne, though the price may be greater than anyone ever imagined!
9th Century Constantinople. A new age of prosperity dawns amid war, invasion and religious upheaval.
Viking-Greek Empress Eudokia Ingerina tells her sons the real story behind the myth of their fathers. It is a tale of humiliation, cunning, intrigue ... and love!
Vassilis, a village lad, loses his family to marauders in the forests of eastern Macedonia. He must learn quickly to survive, both in the wilds and at the Bulgar court. Eventually he finds his way to Constantinople, where he gains the favor of the young Emperor Michael, and Ingerina, Michael's mistress.
Michael resents his mother, the Regent Theodora, and his guardian, the Eunuch Theoktistos, who forced him to marry against his will. His uncle, the brilliant but degenerate Vardas, returns from exile and encourages Michael's more capricious side, only to fall foul of both Patriarch and Pope.
As the Roman court lurches from crisis to crisis, Michael, Vassilis and Ingerina find common purpose, friendship and affection in one another. But now Ingerina must convince both her lovers that her sons have a right to the imperial throne, though the price may be greater than anyone ever imagined!
338 pages, Paperback
First published December 28, 2012
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
September 2, 2019
This is a fascinating novel about the Byzantine Empress Ingirina and her life. I was completely intrigued by her and all the machinations at the Emperor's court and learned so much about this period in history. If you like your historical novels to be unusual, I'd definitely recommend this!
June 16, 2013
As someone who doesn't know much about history (particularly not the Byzantine era of the Roman Empire), I wasn't really sure what to expect from this novel when I picked it up. My first impressions were that it was filled with complex vocabulary and similar names - particularly I found the use of Greek terminology confusing at first, sometimes getting confused over what was a person's name, and what was a place or object. I suspect, though, that this was primarily due to unfamiliarity with the era, as my ability to focus on the story improved as I read on.
This is a fairly large novel (at 320 paperback pages) - something I'd usually get through in a few days, but it took me two weeks to finish. Now, having reached the end, I'm glad it did. The best way to truly understand this book's many layers of intrigue and complexity is to read through it slowly, so forcing me to slow down was the best thing the author could have done. The storyline broadly follows the actual events of the era (as I discovered on performing some quick Wikipedia research - Vassillis is Emperor Basil I if anyone else wants to follow suit), with interpolation based upon the author's obviously well-researched knowledge of the era in general.
Perhaps because of the need to stick to historical facts, the plotting is extremely tight, the characters highly believable, and the dramatisation of key events was enough to keep me reading for several multi-hour sessions. Coming into this lacking any knowledge of the era, I wasn't expecting any of the events (although there was a point at which I thought 'Character X is going to die' and was proved right - no, I'm not saying who, because I want to keep this review 'spoiler'-free (if there is such a thing in a historical novel)), so my enjoyment of this work relied heavily on the skill of the author rather than any preconceptions.
The author has chosen to follow some literary techniques (Anglicisation of some names), whilst abandoning others (writing in present tense rather than past tense); in each case, it's easy to see why he made this choice. I commented in the first paragraph on the use of Greek terminology; it would, perhaps, have been useful to have footnotes in the text on the first use of a term the average reader can't be expected to know, rather than at the end of the novel - especially on an e-reader where you can't just stick your thumb in a page and leaf to the end of the book (although given the problems my Kindle has had with other footnoted books, I think just buying the paperback may have been a better idea for me at least).
I mentioned the use of present tense - for most of my school life I was taught that you should NEVER write a story in present tense, as you're relating something that happened in the past, so normally, I'd find this quite jarring and stop reading fairly quickly. However, the author seems to be treating this as a set of journals being read to her son Leo (who will become Emperor Leo the Wise, though not over the course of this novel), written as the events were happening, so the decision makes perfect sense in context.
The real test, of course, is when a real historian reads and reviews this novel; however, the author makes it clear in his acknowledgements that a large number of historians helped him with his research, so I'm sure the novel will pass that test (unlike, say, Digital Fortress by Dan Brown, which, as a computer scientist, I read with amusement at the number of factual errors rather than any interest in the story - but that's not a topic for this review). Something tells me that we'll be seeing more from Achilleas Mavrellis - let's hope his second novel is as compelling as his first.
This is a fairly large novel (at 320 paperback pages) - something I'd usually get through in a few days, but it took me two weeks to finish. Now, having reached the end, I'm glad it did. The best way to truly understand this book's many layers of intrigue and complexity is to read through it slowly, so forcing me to slow down was the best thing the author could have done. The storyline broadly follows the actual events of the era (as I discovered on performing some quick Wikipedia research - Vassillis is Emperor Basil I if anyone else wants to follow suit), with interpolation based upon the author's obviously well-researched knowledge of the era in general.
Perhaps because of the need to stick to historical facts, the plotting is extremely tight, the characters highly believable, and the dramatisation of key events was enough to keep me reading for several multi-hour sessions. Coming into this lacking any knowledge of the era, I wasn't expecting any of the events (although there was a point at which I thought 'Character X is going to die' and was proved right - no, I'm not saying who, because I want to keep this review 'spoiler'-free (if there is such a thing in a historical novel)), so my enjoyment of this work relied heavily on the skill of the author rather than any preconceptions.
The author has chosen to follow some literary techniques (Anglicisation of some names), whilst abandoning others (writing in present tense rather than past tense); in each case, it's easy to see why he made this choice. I commented in the first paragraph on the use of Greek terminology; it would, perhaps, have been useful to have footnotes in the text on the first use of a term the average reader can't be expected to know, rather than at the end of the novel - especially on an e-reader where you can't just stick your thumb in a page and leaf to the end of the book (although given the problems my Kindle has had with other footnoted books, I think just buying the paperback may have been a better idea for me at least).
I mentioned the use of present tense - for most of my school life I was taught that you should NEVER write a story in present tense, as you're relating something that happened in the past, so normally, I'd find this quite jarring and stop reading fairly quickly. However, the author seems to be treating this as a set of journals being read to her son Leo (who will become Emperor Leo the Wise, though not over the course of this novel), written as the events were happening, so the decision makes perfect sense in context.
The real test, of course, is when a real historian reads and reviews this novel; however, the author makes it clear in his acknowledgements that a large number of historians helped him with his research, so I'm sure the novel will pass that test (unlike, say, Digital Fortress by Dan Brown, which, as a computer scientist, I read with amusement at the number of factual errors rather than any interest in the story - but that's not a topic for this review). Something tells me that we'll be seeing more from Achilleas Mavrellis - let's hope his second novel is as compelling as his first.
June 7, 2013
The first third of this book was good, not great, but ok. The remainder was not as polished, with dialogue that was often confusing, or illogical at times and some events occurring with little explanation. There were occasional anachronisms (pumpkins were not in Europe prior to Columbus reaching the Americas). There was a lot of gay sex, some of it gratuitous, and given how the story ended, possibly completely unnecessary. The book could have used better copy editing - once the word "know" was used instead of "now", and there were words that occasionally went missing, mostly in the second half of the book.
As for the story itself, the impression I got was that two of the main characters, Michael the Byzantine emperor, and his mistress Eudokia Ingerina, were just a couple of mixed up teenagers, even into their 30s. Possible, but people grew up fast in the middle ages. I don't think this book has gotten to the core story of the Michael/Basil/Ingerina triangle.
As for the story itself, the impression I got was that two of the main characters, Michael the Byzantine emperor, and his mistress Eudokia Ingerina, were just a couple of mixed up teenagers, even into their 30s. Possible, but people grew up fast in the middle ages. I don't think this book has gotten to the core story of the Michael/Basil/Ingerina triangle.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews