The Stolen Queen

The very ancient and the more recent past, the glamor of the fashion world and the dust from excavating for antiquities meet in Davis’s thrilling saga of female determination. In the 1936 part of the story, novice archaeologist Charlotte Cross braves searing temperatures, colonial snobbery, and sexism on a dig in Egypt’s Valley of the Kings, when she unexpectedly finds both treasure and love. In 1978, we find Charlotte working on Egyptian artifacts in New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art and bristling when jewelry from the vast collection is earmarked for use on a mannequin at the Met Gala. (No Kardashians were harmed in the making of this book.) On the fashion side of the gala loan is Annie Jenkins, a young woman who’s under her lazy mother’s heel until her life starts to open up after a chance meeting with Diana Vreeland. Happenings on the night of the gala fuel the rumor that female Pharaoh Hathorkare, a subject of Charlotte’s work in the ‘30s and now, brings destruction to anyone who deals with her. (An author’s note explains that Hathorkare is loosely based on Hatshepsut.) Finding out who’s really behind an audacious crime at the gala reveals why Charlotte hasn’t been able to face visiting Egypt all these years. It also shines a light on the real-life debate around repatriation of art to its country of origin. A thought-provoking and exciting read.