Genie of Pasargad: Babylon/Persia #4 - Paperback

by Kristin Swenson (Author)

Tensions rise within Cyrus's family when geo-political pressure dictates personal affairs, alienating Cyrus from his beloved wife Cassandane. The hostility of greater powers and a stubborn illness plaguing Cassandane give Cyrus excuse to take his frustration and fury across mountains, rivers, and deserts. The clash of empires and a quest for inner peace will determine the shape of the world and its gods in ways that still reverberate today.
The cunning of Croesus, legendary for his wealth; Babylonian King Nabonidus's determined piety; and the ambition of prince Belshazzar create conditions that could render Cyrus the reluctant leader of a vast empire. A woman stands in the breach. Yet Amytis, the bastard princess of Media, widow of the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar, and now the second wife of Cyrus (her nephew), still will not conform.
Part of a series of historical fiction by an award-winning writer and expert of ancient Near Eastern history, Genie of Pasargad is a provocative account thick with fast-paced drama of the rise of the Persian Empire under Cyrus II ("Cyrus the Great") and the extraordinary women whose lives shaped it all. When Cassandane, smarting from perceived betrayal withdraws in bitterness, her daughter Atossa finds a surrogate in Amytis and an intriguing playmate in the young Darius. Cassandane's intractable illness and Amytis's unique knowledge bring Cyrus's Persians to the gates of Babylon. Tragedy sends Cyrus to the east in search of a sage's cure for suffering. This is the Bible's beginnings at the crossroads of the nascent world religions, east and west, and sets the course of human history for millennia to come.