9 Books Set in Ancient Worlds

In Egypt’s 18th Dynasty, high priestess Neferura, the daughter of female pharaoh Hatshepsut, lives a life ruled by duty. When her (awful) half-brother Thutmose arrives at court, she overhears his plot to end her mother’s rule: he will plant seeds of betrayal by starting a rumor that Hatshepsut poisoned her husband in his sleep. If he goes public with this accusation, it could plunge the kingdom into chaos. Neferura sets out to stop him, partnering with a mysterious tattooed woman and her network of spies to do it. Does she trust this lady all the way? Not really. And did her mother, in fact, poison her father? She’s…not sure, actually, but she is beginning to see that her mother is a lot more ruthless than she realized. High stakes + intrigue + an Egyptian setting = just my cup of tea.

I read a lot of Greek mythology. And I mean A LOT. I could have included Circe, or Song of Achilles, or A Thousand Ships, all beloved reads, but I chose this one by Pat Barker because I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the cost of war. The Silence of the Girls is a powerful retelling of the Iliad as told by Briseis, Trojan queen and captive of Achilles. It is a raw and unflinching examination of the cost of war to women specifically that has stayed with me for years. It’s not an easy read, but it’s fantastic.

You may think of the Broken Earth trilogy when you think of N.K. Jemisin, but don’t sleep on the Dreamblood duology, an epic fantasy series inspired by Egyptian mythology. In a city where the only law is peace and two moons rise in the sky every night, a priesthood of the dream goddess is tasked with walking the dreams of its citizens, harvesting them to ensure that peace is preserved. We get assassin priests, mad kings, and the goddess of death in one helluva fantasy ride.

Inspired by the civilizations of the Pre-Columbian Americas, Black Sun opens in the city of Tova during Winter Solstice in what should be a time for celebration and renewal. But this year the solstice coincides with the solar eclipse that is portended by the Sun Priest to signal the unbalancing of the world. Meanwhile, an outcast sailor has been hired to sail a ship into Tova containing a single passenger, a mysterious cloaked man with a thing for crows (#relatable) and a bone to pick with the Sun Priest. Sounds suspish.

This book is from my TBR and comes highly recommended. Set in ancient China, this wuxia-inspired, action-packed fantasy features a corrupt government (what’s that like?) and layered, complex characters. Lin Chong was a highly regarded weapons instructor before a powerful man with a vendetta had her unfairly branded as a criminal and stripped of her position. Now a member of a mostly women gang of badass bandits, Chong and friends must carve out their existence in a society that only wants to hold them down.

For years I’ve been saying I needed someone to write me a Silence of the Girls set in Pompeii. Elodie Harper delivered with her Wolf Den trilogy about Amara, a woman who ends up enslaved in Pompeii’s infamous brothel after her father’s death plunged her family into penury. It’s a tough but wonderful read about resilience in the face of so much brutality.

The Ember in the Ashes series is set in a fantasy world inspired by Ancient Rome in the Juleo-Claudian era. Laia is an orphan enslaved by the Martial Empire, where she goes undercover to help the Scholar resistance and save her brother from execution for treason. Elias is a Mask, a soldier brought up in a brutal academy since childhood who is secretly plotting his freedom from this life. Their paths cross in an unlikely series of events, and that is all I will tell you about this series, except to tell you to brace yourself because Sabaa Tahir does not play.

Classicist Natalie Haynes has written some of my favorite works of mythology in both fiction and nonfiction: A Thousand Ships, Stone Blind, Pandora’s Jar, Divine Might. This book, set in ancient Thebes, focuses on Ismene and Jocasta in a reworking of the Oedipus and Antigone tragedies. You’ll go in thinking, “I know how this will go,” and will nonetheless yell, “noooo!” at the pages more than once.