Attolia juggles her overattentive ambassador, the rebellious barons who do not believe a woman can rule alone, and a bloody, costly war. Also manipulating the situation is Attolia’s ambassador from the Mede Empire, Nahuseresh, who pays extravagant attention to the beautiful Queen of Attolia while serving his own agenda. The countries of Eddis and Attolia are soon at war, with neighboring Sounis playing both sides. Attolia is a seemingly heartless ruler but secretly regrets her action. Eugenides returns to Eddis and wallows in a deep depression. He expects to be hanged, but the Queen instead resorts to an ancient traditional punishment for thievery and has his right hand struck off with a sword. The gods of their pantheon are fictional, but as the world’s prime goddess Hephestia‘s name suggests, much is modeled after Greek mythology [i.e., Hephaestus) yet the fantasy world possesses such items from later European cultures such as guns, pocket watches, printed books and stained glass windows.Įugenides, the Thief of Eddis, has been caught spying on the Queen of Attolia. The characters’ names are also Greek, and references are made to actual Greek Classical literature, although the world is fantasy based on various European cultures. The action takes place in the fictional countries of Eddis, Attolia, and Sounis.

The book is set in an imaginary landscape reminiscent of Ancient Greece and other territories around the Mediterranean, particularly Italy. It is the second novel in the Queen's Thief series that Turner inaugurated with The Thief in 1996. The Queen of Attolia is a young adult fantasy novel by Megan Whalen Turner, published by the Greenwillow Books imprint of William Morrow in 2000 (later, of HarperCollins).

The queen of attolia series