We’re celebrating the release of Empire of Shadows this week and if you love swashbuckling adventure stories packed with slow burn witty banter, flesh-eating beetles, and real history, this is a MUST READ!
Empire of Shadows (Raiders of the Arcana Book 1)
Publication Date: April 2, 2024
Genre: Historical Fantasy/ Gaslamp Fantasy
Nice Victorian ladies don’t run off to find legendary lost cities.
One trifling little arrest shouldn’t have cost Ellie Mallory her job, but it’s only the latest in a line of injustices facing any educated woman with archaeological ambitions.
When Ellie stumbles across the map to a mysterious ancient city, she knows she’s holding her chance to revolutionize Pre-Colombian history. There’s just one teensy complication. A ruthless villain wants it, and Ellie is all that stands in his way.
To race him to the ruins—and avoid being violently disposed of—she needs the help of maverick surveyor Adam Bates, a snake-wrangling rogue who can’t seem to keep his dratted shirt on.
But there’s more than Ellie’s scholarly reputation (and life) on the line. Her enemies aren’t just looters. They’re after an arcane secret rumored to lie in the heart of the ruins, a mythical artifact with a power that could shake the world.
Between stealing trousers, plummeting over waterfalls, and trying not to fall in love with her machete-wielding partner, will Ellie be able to stop the oracle of a lost empire from falling into the wrong hands?
Empire of Shadows is the first book in Jacquelyn Benson’s smart, swashbuckling Raiders of the Arcana series. Read it now and dive into a rip-roaring historical fantasy adventure perfect for fans of Romancing the Stone and The Mummy.
About the Author
Jacquelyn Benson writes smart historical fantasy where strong women confront the stranger things that occupy the borders of our world.
She once lived in a museum, wrote a master’s thesis on the cultural anthropology of paranormal investigation, and received a gold medal for being clever. She owes a great deal to her elementary school librarian for sagely choosing to acquire the entire Time-Life Mysteries of the Unknown series.
When not writing, she enjoys the company of a tall, dark, and handsome English teacher and practices unintentional magic.
My thoughts: this was so much fun, a bit The Mummy (the Brendan Fraser one), a bit Indiana Jones but with a brilliant female protagonist set in an era when women were expected to get married and have children and be satisfied with their lot.
Ellie is a historian, archivist and budding archaeologist, if society would just let her. When she finds a mysterious map showing what she thinks is a Mayan secret city in British Honduras (modern day Belize), and is followed by a scary figure who seems to be after the map, she immediately books passage on the first ship across the Atlantic.
Once there she meets Adam Bates, the deputy surveyor and recruits him to help her find the city. Only she’s using a fake name, he went to Cambridge with her brother, and they’re being followed by the same sinister man she saw in London.
He’s got a whole crew of miscreants with him, and is searching for a magical item hidden in the city. Luckily some of his crew know Bates and with their help, and that of a local native priest, they just might escape in one piece.
I loved Ellie and Adam, they spend all their time bickering and falling in love, while on the adventure of a lifetime, full of terrifying moments and heart stopping risk. It’s absolutely marvellous. I cannot wait for the next one!
Tour Organized By: @rrbooktours
X: @rrbooktours1 #rrbooktours
IG: @jbensonink @rrbooktours
*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in this blog tour, but all opinions remain my own
ramblingmads 