The Gardens of Byzantium

“An evocative, rich portrait of a tumultuous time, in which the main characters must ascertain which of them is indeed the captive of the other; humans reduced to themselves through the vicissitudes of history, and the limitations of landscape, class, and war. Hughes possesses a sense of the past that enables us to see and sometimes even to hear his various subjects, conveying a compelling sense of mystery and inevitability.”

– SUSANNA MOORE, author of In the Cut, The Whiteness of Bones, and The Lost Wife

The year is 622 A.D., and the Persian and Byzantine empires have been fighting a war in the deserts since before she was born...

Asana's life has been one of turmoil and change. Every year found her uprooted and brought to another foreign land to live an austere life in a garrison with her father, an officer in the Persian Army. But the middle of a war is no place for such a gentle soul.

Before long, she is swept away from her family and forced to flee on the back of her beloved horse. Fate leads her into the hands of a handsome and mysterious Roman soldier who sequesters her in a beautiful palace in the heart of Constantinople, the capital of the Byzantine empire.

She begins to fall for him, and at last it seems as though she may have found an oasis of happiness in her war-torn world. That is, until news of a Persian army marching toward the city upends her life again, setting in motion an unstoppable chain of events that bring the story to its breathtaking and tragic conclusion...

The year is 622 A.D., and the Persian and Byzantine empires have been fighting a war in the deserts since before she was born...

Asana's life has been one of turmoil and change. Every year found her uprooted and brought to another foreign land to live an austere life in a garrison with her father, an officer in the Persian Army. But the middle of a war is no place for such a gentle soul.

Before long, she is swept away from her family and forced to flee on the back of her beloved horse. Fate leads her into the hands of a handsome and mysterious Roman soldier who sequesters her in a beautiful palace in the heart of Constantinople, the capital of the Byzantine empire.

She begins to fall for him, and at last it seems as though she may have found an oasis of happiness in her war-torn world. That is, until news of a Persian army marching toward the city upends her life again, setting in motion an unstoppable chain of events that bring the story to its breathtaking and tragic conclusion...