Behind The Book With Fiona Davis 

In 2022 I did one of my very early Q&As with New York Times Bestselling Author of Historical Fiction, Fiona Davis! This year I did an Authors In The Media Q&A with Fiona & now we are reuniting once again to discuss her new novel The Stolen Queen which will be released on January 7^th! I was so honored and lucky to read an early PDF copy of the novel! If you enjoy historical fiction especially having to do with Egypt, you are in for a treat! 

Q: Would you please give a brief description of The Stolen Queen for those who haven’t read the novel?

A: The Stolen Queen is set at New York City’s Met Museum in the autumn of 1978, when a 60-year-old enigmatic, serious associate curator in the Egyptian Art Collection is unwillingly teamed up with an over-eager, 19-year-old staffer for the Met Gala to track down a stolen artifact. Part of the novel is set in 1930s Egypt, when the curator was an up-and-coming archaeologist, and it’s about female friendships, mothers and daughters, long-held secrets, and of course includes a deadly curse.

Q: In the Authors Note, you mentioned that you used Hatshepsut as the inspiration behind the fictional queen Hathorkare that you created. What made you create Hathorkare instead of writing Hatshepsut’s story?

A: Hatshepsut’s story, both during her life and after her death, is quite something. This was a rare female pharaoh who for a long time was lost to history and then eventually rediscovered, both in terms of her contributions as a leader as well as the recent identification of her actual mummy. I preferred to make my character the one who figures things out, but that would step on the toes of the experts who did all the hard work, and I also needed to streamline the timing of the actual events for the sake of the plot. After some consideration, I decided it would be easier to work with a fictional pharaoh and then explain very clearly in the author’s note what was fact and what was made up.

Q: How long did it take you to research & write The Stolen Queen? I know in the Authors Note you included a list of books for further reading on Egypt & Diana Vreeland & the Met. Did you also take a trip to Egypt for research purposes? If so, which places were your favorite sites to see?

A: The entire book took about a year and a half to write. The first three or four months were all research, learning everything I could about what it was like to work on a dig in 1930s Egypt and what the Met Gala of 1978—led by the iconic Diana Vreeland—was all about. I also took a trip to Egypt that was truly phenomenal. I visited Cairo, the Valley of the Kings, took a boat up the Nile, and saw the Pyramids. It would be hard to pick a favorite site but viewing the mummy of Hatshepsut in a Cairo Museum was really moving. After doing all that research, I realized I was looking at the actual woman who walked the earth 3500 years ago and ruled Egypt. Incredible.

Q: What lessons & emotions do you hope readers learn and feel after reading The Stolen Queen? 

A: The book explores the importance of reclaiming women’s contributions to history, whether a female pharaoh or associate curator. It also offers up a different way of looking at the great institution of the Met, not as a collection of art, but a collection of stories, and how by examining the stories behind the objects, we get a richer sense of the times and places of the past. Beyond that, I hope it helps readers examine mother/daughter relationships in a new light, as well as how women’s voices and agency have changed over time.

Q: If you were to write a sequel to The Stolen Queen, what would Charlotte & Annie be doing now? 

A: Fun question! Charlotte would be uncovering incredible finds in Egypt and Annie would be running the Met Gala.

Q: Which scenes in the novel were your favorite to write & why?

A: I loved writing the Egyptian scenes in the 1930s, but the most fun was writing about the night of the Met Gala, when everything goes terribly wrong, and the plot takes an unexpected turn. I truly enjoyed that one. 

Q: If The Stolen Queen were to be made into a movie or miniseries, who would be your dream cast? I’m thinking Diane Lane to play Charlotte & Florence Pugh to be Annie. 

A: I imagined Charlotte Rampling as Charlotte and Merritt Weaver as Annie while I was writing the first draft. But I love your picks as well!

Q: What made you choose to have the dual timelines of 1937 to 1978? 

A: I was very much inspired by a non-fiction book called Empress of the Nile by Lynne Olson, about a young woman/archaeologist who worked in Egypt in the early 1900s. I knew I wanted to show her both as a young woman and as someone who’s older, so in 1978 she’d be 60, which was a great year for the Met Gala, with the quirky, brilliant Diana Vreeland as special consultant, so it made perfect sense.

Q: I know Egypt is a big part of The Stolen Queen, would you ever think about writing another historical fiction novel in Egypt but make it in ancient times this time? 

A: That’s too far back for me, I’m afraid. I’m happy to just have dabbled in those eras through the research for Hatshepsut/Hathorkare. And so many other authors and scholars have written about ancient Egypt, I’m happy to leave that in the hands of the experts.