The Scorpion Queen

Uprooted meets Children of Blood and Bone in this dark fantasy inspired by a Malian fairy tale about a princess whose suitors are challenged to gruesome trials.

Deep within the imperial palace at Timbuktu, Amie has suffered a devastating loss. Once the daughter of a prosperous salt merchant, Amie’s life was cruelly overturned in a matter of months. At sixteen, Amie now finds herself disinherited, framed for a scandalous crime, and forced to serve Princess Mariama of Mali. Her father, Emperor Suleyman, has created a series of impossible trials for his daughter’s suitors. When they fail, he publicly boils them alive, littering Mariama’s path to marriage with ninety-nine corpses.

At first, Amie’s life at court is drudgery--the chores are difficult, the servants despise her, and Princess Mariama is prone to mood swings--but the more she learns about the princess’s circumstances, the closer the two girls become. Amie and her intended, Kader, plan to escape Timbuktu and make a new life far away from the shadow of death that has fallen upon the emperor’s court, but she finds herself increasingly drawn to the princess in ways she doesn’t understand.

When a mysterious discovery forces her hand, she must choose between fleeing with the boy she loves or helping the princess to end the trials forever. Amie will need to draw on all of her strength and courage to make the perilous journey through the desert to seek the aid of an exiled god in a final, desperate attempt to take charge of her own destiny.

Mina Fears earned her BA and MFA in Fiction from Columbia University. Originally from Michigan, she remains in New York City to support corporate communications for tech and finance brands. The Scorpion Queen is her first novel.