Raiders of the Arcana

Nice Victorian ladies don't run off to find legendary lost cities. One trifling little arrest shouldn't have cost Ellie Mallory her job, but it's only the latest in a line of injustices facing any educated woman with archaeological ambitions. When Ellie stumbles across the map to a mysterious ancient city, she knows she's holding her chance to revolutionize Pre-Colombian history. There's just one teensy complication. A ruthless villain wants it, and Ellie is all that stands in his way. To race him to the ruins-and avoid being violently disposed of-she needs the help of maverick surveyor Adam Bates, a snake-wrangling rogue who can't seem to keep his dratted shirt on. But there's more than Ellie's scholarly reputation (and life) on the line. Her enemies aren't just looters. They're after an arcane secret rumored to lie in the heart of the ruins, a mythical artifact with a power that could shake the world. Between stealing trousers, plummeting over waterfalls, and trying not to fall in love with her machete-wielding partner, will Ellie be able to stop the oracle of a lost empire from falling into the wrong hands? Empire of Shadows is the first book in Jacquelyn Benson's smart, swashbuckling Raiders of the Arcana series, narrated by twenty-year acting veteran Alex Picard. Read it now and dive into a rip-roaring historical fantasy adventure perfect for fans of What the River Knows and The Mummy.

Respectable lady scholars shouldnt be dodging evildoers, escaping lost tombs, and chasing down magical artifacts. Archivist and suffragette Ellie Mallory always dreamed of putting her scholarly skills to work in the ancient sands of Egypt. She never imagined she would be doing so in order to save an object of legendary power from a batch of ruthless villains. Racing baddies to an arcanum of Biblical proportions is only one of Ellies problems. Her hopelessly academic and perpetually mortified step-brother, Dr. Neil Fairfax, is about to learn that shes been gallivanting around the globe with his danger-magnet best friend, Adam Batesthe roguish surveyor for whom Ellie harbors increasingly complicated feelings. Add the petite and terrifyingly fearless Constance Tyrrell to the mix, and Ellie either has a crack team of artifact-saving experts to hand or a recipe for disaster. Together, theyll need to follow a trail of three-thousand-year-old clues from the necropolis of Saqqara to the temples of Luxor and beyond, where the ruined capital of a heretic pharaoh hides a secret with the potential to upend history. To keep an earth-shattering magic from falling into the wrong hands, Ellie will need to pull out all the stopseven if that means resorting to fisticuffs, ignoring proper archaeological processes and solving one of Egypts greatest mysteries. Dive intoTomb of the Sun Kingto experience the next action-packed historical fantasy adventure in theRaiders of the Arcanaseries, narrated by SOVAS award-nominated voice actor Alex Picard.