The Pomegranate Queen. A rich, atmospheric historical drama about a woman healer, court intrigue, forbidden love, family loyalty, poison and power, and the fall of Moorish Spain

One drop of myrrh too many, and a man dies. One secret too many, and a kingdom falls. In the last days of Moorish Granada, a healer's daughter grinds medicine in her father's shop, the crescent burns on her palms aching with every turn of the pestle. Her hands must be steadier than a surgeon's. Her father says a woman's hands always must. When the silk merchant Yusuf ibn Rashid collapses after feasting at the sultan's palace, his skin the color of honey gone wrong, she knows the truth long before anyone dares say it aloud. This was no bad lamb. This was poison. "My mother says a woman can't know the humors the way a man can, " the merchant's son tells her. But she knows exactly what killed his father, and she knows who would gladly silence a healer who knows too much. Drawn behind the carved arches and arabesque walls of the Alhambra, she is pulled into the perfumed, treacherous world of the court, bound to the wounded, gentle son with the loose dark curls and the deepening limp. It is a place where every cup of antidote could be a cup of death, and every smile hides a knife. A forbidden friendship across a widening divide. A buried secret that should never have surfaced. A queen mother's garden hiding more bodies than blooms. As the Christian armies close in and the last pomegranates of the season ripen and split on the branch, she is forced toward an impossible choice between the man she has come to love, the father who shaped her every breath, and a truth that could cost her everything she has. Some secrets wait centuries to be told. Some letters cross a lifetime to find the one who needs them most. The Pomegranate Queen is a rich, atmospheric historical drama about a woman healer, court intrigue, forbidden love, family loyalty, poison and power, and the fall of Moorish Spain. Perfect for readers who love sweeping historical fiction, women in medicine, palace conspiracies, star-crossed romance, and secrets that echo across generations.
A standalone novel of Moorish Spain.