EMPRESS

<p><span style=color: rgba(51 51 51 1)>In 2016 construction workers in Istanbul made a remarkable discovery. Sealed in a lead pot twelve feet underground was a lost manuscript by the Byzantine princess and historian Anna Komnene-an intimate account of the royals who held sway in Constantinople in the High Middle Ages. This is the first English translation of the Anekdota or Secret History of Anna Komnene (1083-1153). Not since the Dead Sea Scrolls were unearthed at Quran has an archeological find threatened to upend everything we know about a heretofore-fuzzy historical period.</span></p><p><span style=color: rgba(51 51 51 1)> </span></p><p><span style=color: rgba(51 51 51 1)>A magnificent work of imagination and scholarship Greg Olear's Empress: The Secret History of Anna K. reveals the intrigues of 11th and 12th century Byzantium. Princess Anna Komnene a precocious child and shrewd adult exposes the power grabs turns of fortunes betrayals and alliances that gave rise and fall to one of the world's great empires. Times they do change but human nature does not.</span></p><p><span style=color: rgba(51 51 51 1)> -Ronlyn Domingue internationally published author of The Mercy of Thin Air and the Keeper of Tales Trilogy</span></p><p><span style=color: rgba(51 51 51 1)> </span></p><p><span style=color: rgba(51 51 51 1)>With the imagination of a novelist and the exacting attention of a journalist Greg Olear has written a transportative tale of sex violence and politics. These timeless themes and the characters they swirl around make the richly embroidered tapestry of medieval details and Byzantine machinations he's woven feel as urgent and compelling as current news.</span></p><p><span style=color: rgba(51 51 51 1)> -Aja Raden author of Stoned and The Truth About Lies</span></p>