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Alexander and Alestria
Shan Sa
Harper
August 2008
On Sale: August 1, 2008
256 pages ISBN: 0061543543 EAN: 9780061543548 Hardcover
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Historical
re-creating the lives of two of the most intriguing
rulers in history, Shan Sa brings us a novel filled with the
sound of hooves, the whistle of arrows, blood, passion, and
betrayal. The familiar figure of Alexander the Great comes
to new life in this richly imagined tale, which entwines his
historical legacy with a fantastic love affair set in a
wartime between Western and Eastern civilizations.
Abused by his father, King Philip, who loved and hated his
beauty; shadowed by his mother, the mystical and overbearing
Queen Olympias; educated by Aristotle who wanted him to be a
wise philosopher of Macedonia, Alexander develops a complex
character. He becomes a brutal warrior, a pitiless
strategist, and a poet longing for the world's wonders.
Meanwhile, in the remote steppes of Siberia, an abandoned
girl grows up among the wild mares, then adopted by the
queen of the Amazons—the tribe of female warriors who
dominates a wild world of snow and volcano. As a future
queen, the young girl is trained to hate men and to fight
against all invaders. In the course of his great
conquest of Asia, Alexander first meets the stunning
Alestria on the battlefield. Surprised to find that his
adversary is a woman, he is instantly smitten by the fierce
queen. Dazzled by his strength, she decides to kidnap him
and make him her "wife." At last, this legendary
king—renowned for his beauty and love of men—has found his
equal. And at last, this indomitable young woman has found a
reason to leave her tribe. Their love, deeply passionate and
problematic, evolves against an exotic backdrop of warfare
and political turmoil, sweeps from antique Greece to Egypt,
across the ancient Iraq and Iran, unto the mysterious
kingdoms of India.
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