by Terri Favro
Everyone knows the tale of brave Laura De Marco, Redemptrix of Voltagetown, heroine of the War of Reunification. How she crossed miles of snowy terrain under the guise of taking her cow to market to deliver news of a Stater ambush to Major-General Sir Isaac Badger. Her crucial intelligence of that decisive battle finally brought the United Kingdom of America back under Crown rule after eighty-seven long years.
But the truth is not so simple.
Now, for the first time, the true story of Lady Laura and Major-General Badger is told. Her own words are faithfully reproduced, a century after her death and long suppressed, from the personal diary of the rogue Vice-Regal Archivist James Hansom to a fantastic collection of antiques in Death Valley and even top secret correspondence from the Queen herself. This book tells the shocking and sordid truth about the formation of our “great” empire.
This is the history the False Queen doesn’t want you to know.
ISBN: 978-1-998795-36-9
Genre: Alternative History/Steampunk
Age: 16+
Pages: 262
Formats: Paperback, ebook
Releasing: March 2027
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A delightful, sometimes shocking, combo of fractured history, dismayingly relevant politics, and an unlikely love story – [with] a dash of classic sci-fi. The False Queen’s Archive is like nothing I’ve read before. I loved it, and was enthralled from the very first page.
Sally McBride, Aurora Award-winning author of The Fragrance of Orchids and Other Stories
Like all the best speculative novels, Terri Favro’s latest book pulls off a two-faced trick: it offers up a parallel world that confronts us with profound and troubling questions about our own, while simultaneously taking us on a rollicking, page-turning ride that almost makes us forget the seriousness of the venture—whose truths shape collective reality, and what power do people have to undermine lies masquerading as fact?
Jade Wallace, author of ANOMIA
A sizzling slide into a world inhabited by robots, monarchs, elephants and airships, this blend of history and fantasy is steeped in intrigue and full of surprises. Favro fuses what was and what might have been in a steampunk crucible then fires an electric story into the future. The False Queen’s Archive is a marvel!
Katie Welch, author of Mad Honey and Ladder to Heaven
Filled with fantastic visuals (dirigibles, a robotic Monarchy, tightrope-walking foot soldiers), The False Queen’s Archive is both the glorious dream of an impossible past, and a solemn reminder of the ever-present threat of invasion.
Chris Kuriata, author of Sacrifice of the Sisters Lot
Terri Favro has established herself as a Grand Master of the Multiverse. You can’t help but wonder if a United Kingdom of America might be a much better thing than what we have now.”
Hugh Spencer, author of The Hard Side of the Moon