Zenobia: Birth of a Legend

Zenobia #1

by Russ Wallace

Young Zenobia dreams of becoming a warrior, a serious problem for a girl born into a male-dominated desert tribe. She has been forced to hide her gender to preserve her life. Her deception is unmasked, leading to an incredible turn of events.
Her wise mother envisions a different life for her daughter – that of a scholar – and takes her to Egypt for an education. Here a conflict of desires surges in Zenobia, for she finds that she loves both paths. As she feeds an emerging hunger for justice, the stirrings of a future political and strategic genius begin to manifest themselves.
Growing into young womanhood, Zenobia feels an awakening attraction to two very different males – a vibrant young warrior from her own tribe and a brilliant bachelor scholar whose analytical mind cannot help from feeling romantically drawn to the most intriguing female he has ever met.
Meanwhile, Zenobia learns of the annual horse race in Alexandria. She decides to enter her powerful mare against the highly-bred stallions of the East. The power of a legend influences the surprising course of the contest to its thundering conclusion.

Genres: Historical Fiction

362 pages, Hardcover

First published June 15, 2011

About the author

Russ Wallace is a long-time student of history and religion. He employs a vivid imagination to fill in the life of Zenobia, a real historical figure and one of the most fascinating women who ever lived. He is working on future Zenobia books.

Reviews

[Monica Hills · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really enjoyed the beginning of this novel. It had an excellent start. I had read a previous book about Zenobia but it did not deal with her childhood so this book interested me. I enjoyed the setting of Egypt when she went to school and there were some events that were interesting. However I lost interest halfway in. It just got a little tedious. I think this woman is fascinating and she is not as well known as she should be. I appreciate the author writing about her.

[Joyce]

I very much enjoyed this book. I found Zenobia a highly sympathetic character that I wanted to keep reading and finding out more about. I love reading about ancient history, and "Zenobia", by Russ Wallace had me so intrigued with various historical threads that I kept pausing in my reading to zip over to Wikipedia (thank you, iPad!) to read more about the great library at Alexandria (including a list of ancient head librarians and an ancient cataloguing system that was not fully replaced until the 19th century Dewey Decimal System), the legends about Nimrod (which in turn led me to the fascinating legends about additional sons of the Biblical Noah, including the Greek Titans...who knew? LOL), etc. I felt my knowledge, as well as my enjoyment, vastly expanded by the time I reached the end. Which is not really the end, as this is the first in a series covering the life of this historical figure, Zenobia.

[Bethany Swafford · Rating 3 out of 5]

Based on the real life historical figure, this book is the first in the chronicles of the early life of Zenobia. Saved from being killed as a baby for being female by her clever mother, Zenobia’s life is almost too fantastic to be true. She is determined to learn all she can and to train like the men to be as great as she can be. She is a strong girl with enough determination and bravery to match twenty people.

Richly detailed and shining with brilliant research, this is a treasure for anyone who loves strong women and history.

I was provided with a free copy as part of the LovingTheBook blog tour.

[Julie · Rating 5 out of 5]

I finished the book! I liked the heroine Zenobia and her straight forward ways. She's a joy to watch grown and learn. There are a lot of exciting parts and I don't want to give any of them away. A great story about history and you get plenty of action and adventure. There is budding romances that makes me want to get into book two, which is supposed to come out later this year. The horse race had me holding my breath the whole time. I highly recommend this book for all ages. The character may be a young girl but her search for knowledge will stimulate all ages and gender.