Libbie Hawker
Historical Fiction
Calamity
A Finalist for the WILLA Literary Award for Historical Fiction
Her name is synonymous with the West. Her celebrity has spread to the East Coast and California, traveling down the new-laid railroads and along the telegraph wire.
But breathless tales of Calamity Jane bear little resemblance to the truth. As she senses death coming closer, the legendary hellcat longs to set the record straight--to reveal her life story at last, unclouded by legend, every sin and failing laid bare. Only then can she hope to rest in peace.
In a Deadwood saloon, she finds a writer willing to hear her out, and recount the truth to a public hungry for more tales of Calamity Jane...
So begins Libbie Hawker's expansive biographical novel, an intimate portrait of one of the best-known yet least-understood women of the American frontier. The international bestselling author of The Ragged Edge of Night takes the reader on a heart-rending journey through a landscape lost to time, as seen through the eyes of one outcast woman. Calamity is a haunting meditation on hardship, unrequited love, and the stark, affecting beauty of the American West.
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The Sekhmet Bed
The She-King: Book 1
Is Ahmose's divine gift a blessing or a curse?
The second daughter of the Pharaoh, Ahmose has always dreamed of a quiet life as a priestess, serving Egypt's gods, ministering to the people of the Two Lands. But when the Pharaoh dies without an heir, she is given instead as Great Royal Wife to the new king – a soldier of common birth. For Ahmose is god-chosen, gifted with the ability to read dreams, and it is her connection to the gods which ensures the new Pharaoh his right to rule.
Ahmose's elder sister Mutnofret has been raised to expect the privileged station of Great Royal Wife; her rage at being displaced cannot be soothed. As Ahmose fights the currents of Egypt's politics and Mutnofret's vengeful anger, her youth and inexperience carry her beyond her depth and into the realm of sacrilege.
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To right her wrongs and save Egypt from the gods' wrath, Ahmose must face her most visceral fear: bearing an heir. But the gods of Egypt are exacting, and even her sacrifice may not be enough to restore the Two Lands to safety.
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The Crook and Flail
The She-King: Book 2
The son of the god must take her rightful place on Egypt's throne.
Hatshepsut longs for power, but she is constrained by her commitment to maat – the sacred order of righteousness, the way things must be. Her mother claims Hatshepsut is destined for Egypt's throne – not as the king's chief wife, but as the king herself, despite her female body. But a woman on the throne defies maat, and even Hatshepsut is not so bold as to risk the safety of the Two Lands for her own ends.
As God's Wife of Amun, she believes she has found the perfect balance of power and maat, and has reconciled herself to contentment with her station. But even that peace is threatened when the powerful men of Egypt plot to replace her. They see her as nothing but a young woman, easily used for their own ends and discarded. But she is the son of the god Amun, and neither her strength nor her will can be so easily discounted.
As the machinations of politics drive her into the hands of enemies and the arms of lovers, onto the battlefield and into the childbed, she comes face to face with maat itself – and must decide at last whether to surrender her birthright to a man, or to take up the crook and flail of the Pharaoh, and claim for herself the throne of the king.
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Sovereign of Stars
The She-King: Book 3
Hatshepsut has fulfilled her divine destiny and taken the Pharaoh's throne. But she knows her position is precarious. In all Egypt's long history, never has a woman ruled as king -- and Hatshepsut must use all the cleverness and bravery at her disposal to keep the reins of power from tangling in her fist.
As she wrestles with foreign enemies and domestic politics, her heart becomes ever more troubled. Her daughter Neferure, distant and strange since infancy, is chosen by one goddess in particular: Hathor, the Sovereign of Stars, she who wears seven faces -- and not all her faces are gentle.
Her fight to retain her hold on power, peace, and Neferure will carry her on an incomparable journey from Egypt's Black Land across the deadly heat of the Red Land, over the sea to the legendary kingdom of Punt. There, in the god's own valley, she must confront the bleakness of fate, the totality of loss, and the terrifying frailty of eternity.
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The Bull of Min
The She-King: Book 4
“I know,” Satiah called. Her voice was musical, light, confident as a king's. “It's the Bull of Min you remember, Thutmose. You remember, and you fear.”
Conspiracy and treason simmer in the northern reaches of the Two Lands. Thutmose is crippled by guilt over past wrongs. Hatshepsut is subdued by the grief of betrayal and loss. Meryet, the new Great Royal Wife, is the sole force holding the royal family – and Egypt – together.
When an unexpected challenger to the succession arises, all three are faced with impossible choices. To protect what she most loves, Meryet will match wits against a demon from the past. Hatshepsut stands on the brink of the ultimate sacrifice. And Thutmose, torn between throne and family, must commit an unthinkable act against Hatshepsut...or allow Egypt to fall into the hands of an unpredictable killer.
This novella (about 130 pages) is the final volume of The She-King, Libbie Hawker's saga of the Thutmosides of ancient Egypt.
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White Lotus
White Lotus: Book 1
In the fifth century BCE, Egypt is the greatest civilization known to mankind. But with a foolish king on its throne, the Nile Valley is ripe for conquering.
Amid this climate of danger and strife, in the alleys and brothels of Memphis, an extraordinary young woman comes of age. To spare her siblings from starvation, Doricha is sold into prostitution. But she has gifts beyond mere beauty. Through wit and determination, she works her way into the realm of the hetaerae—courtesans of exceptional refinement.
As a hetaera, Doricha has access to the schemes and negotiations that shape the world. But the rich and powerful also have access to her...
Blending the ancient fable that inspired "Cinderella" with true history, White Lotus brings Egypt’s downfall to life.
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Persian Rose
White Lotus: Book 2
In the fifth century BCE, Egypt is the greatest civilization known to mankind. But with a foolish king on its throne, the Nile Valley is ripe for conquering.

Amid this climate of danger and strife, in the alleys and brothels of Memphis, an extraordinary young woman comes of age. To spare her siblings from starvation, Doricha is sold into prostitution. But she has gifts beyond mere beauty. Through wit and determination, she works her way into the realm of the hetaerae—courtesans of exceptional refinement.

As a hetaera, Doricha has access to the schemes and negotiations that shape the world. But the rich and powerful also have access to her, and Doricha soon finds herself in the Pharaoh’s harem, caught up in his reckless schemes. When the Pharaoh sends her off to his fiercest enemy, thinly cloaked by a dangerous ruse, Doricha must become a double agent if she hopes to survive. Caught between the Pharaoh and the Persian king Cambyses, it is Doricha—once a slave, now a woman of great but secret power—who will determine Egypt’s fate.

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Blood Hemlock
White Lotus: Book 3
In the fifth century BCE, Egypt is the greatest civilization known to mankind. But with a foolish king on its throne, the Nile Valley is ripe for conquering.

Amid this climate of danger and strife, in the alleys and brothels of Memphis, an extraordinary young woman comes of age. To spare her siblings from starvation, Doricha is sold into prostitution. But she has gifts beyond mere beauty. Through wit and determination, she works her way into the realm of the hetaerae—courtesans of exceptional refinement.

As a hetaera, Doricha has access to the schemes and negotiations that shape the world. But the rich and powerful also have access to her, and Doricha soon finds herself in the Pharaoh’s harem, caught up in his reckless schemes. When the Pharaoh sends her off to his fiercest enemy, thinly cloaked by a dangerous ruse, Doricha must become a double agent if she hopes to survive. Caught between the Pharaoh and the Persian king Cambyses, it is Doricha—once a slave, now a woman of great but secret power—who will determine Egypt’s fate.

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Tidewater
A clash of desire and hatred, of friendship and fear, of stark ambition and desperate survival.
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In 1607, three ships arrive on the coast of Virginia to establish Jamestown Colony. Their only hope of survival lies with the Powhatan tribe. John Smith knows this. He knows, too, that the Powhatans would rather see the English starve to death than yield their homeland to invaders. In the midst of this struggle, Pocahontas, the daughter of the great chief, forges an unlikely friendship with Smith. Their bond preserves a wary peace—but as each seeks to fulfill their own ambitions, their delicate truce begins to crack. Soon the colonists and Powhatans are locked in battle, and Pocahontas must choose between power and servitude—between self and sacrifice—for the sake of her people and her land.
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"A sweeping story, incredibly detailed... A raw but honest depiction of this fascinating woman." - Historical Novel Review
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Baptism for the Dead
Lyrical and hypnotic, Baptism for the Dead is an unflinching examination of faith and its lack; of love, obligation, and the transformative power of art. A paean to the landscape and culture of the American West, from the bestselling author of Tidewater.
A Mormon woman in a secluded Idaho town casts aside her duties to church and family to follow a wandering artist through the Rocky Mountains and the Great Plains.
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Mercer Girls
Old Seattle: Book 1
Finalist for the 2017 WILLA Award
It’s 1864 in downtrodden Lowell, Massachusetts. The Civil War has taken its toll on the town—leaving the economy in ruin and its women in dire straits. That is, until Asa Mercer arrives on a peculiar, but providential, errand: he seeks high-minded women who can exert an elevating influence in Seattle, where there are ten men for every woman. Mail-order brides, yes, but of a certain caliber.
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Schoolmarmish Josephine, tough-as-nails Dovey, and pious perfectionist Sophronia see their chance to exchange their bleak prospects for new lives. But the very troubles that sent them running from Lowell follow them to the muddy streets of Seattle, and the friendships forged on the cross-country trek are tested at every turn.
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Just when the journey seems to lead only to ruin, an encounter with a famous suffragist could be their salvation. But to survive both an untamed new landscape and their pasts, they’ll need all their strength—and one another.
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Madam
Old Seattle: Book 2
A city on the verge of collapse. A woman ahead of her time.
Seattle, 1888. Economic ruin and dangerous riots have stripped this once-booming city of its former glories, leaving a near-empty husk. The town is ripe for reinvention, if any person has the guts - and the capital - to make Seattle their own.
Miss Lou Graham, recently arrived from San Francisco, intends to rebuild Seattle from the ground up. She has ample wealth, wits, and courage to take on the powerful Reformers, the political party that have ushered Seattle to the brink of disaster. But when she meets Amber, the tempestuous “fallen woman” who captures her heart, Lou must choose between love and her dreams of success. A lady rescuing the city is scandalous enough; will anyone in Seattle deign to work with a lady who loves other women?
As Lou struggles to revive the city and to confront her own desires, she is joined by new friends, each facing trials of their own. Jiayi still suffers from the aftermath of the anti-Chinese riots, which stranded her in Seattle two years before. Emerson must hide his past infamy from his well-bred fiancée. Lauretta, haunted by a tragic loss, embarks on an ill-advised quest to adopt a neglected child. And Amber, Lou Graham's secret love, strives to break her addiction to laudanum before the court takes her daughter away.
When an unfathomable disaster strikes Seattle, neither Lou nor her friends can hide any longer. Deception and shame will be burned away, leaving truth to rise from the ashes.With the scope of a Michener novel and an unforgettable cast of characters, Libbie Hawker returns to historic Seattle, the setting of her best-seller Mercer Girls, finalist for the 2017 Willa Award.
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Daughter of Sand and Stone
When Zenobia takes control of her own fate, will the gods punish her audacity?
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Zenobia, the proud daughter of a Syrian sheikh, refuses to marry against her will. She won’t submit to a lifetime of subservience. When her father dies, she sets out on her own, pursuing the power she believes to be her birthright, dreaming of the Roman Empire’s downfall and her ascendance to the throne.
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Defying her family, Zenobia arranges her own marriage to the most influential man in the city of Palmyra. But their union is anything but peaceful—his other wife begrudges the marriage and the birth of Zenobia’s son, and Zenobia finds herself ever more drawn to her guardsman, Zabdas. As war breaks out, she’s faced with terrible choices.
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From the decadent halls of Rome to the golden sands of Egypt, Zenobia fights for power, for love, and for her son. But will her hubris draw the wrath of the gods? Will she learn a “woman’s place,” or can she finally stake her claim as Empress of the East?
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House of Rejoicing
The Book of Coming Forth by Day: Part 1
In the waning years of Egypt’s Eighteenth Dynasty, when female power can only come at an unsettling price, four royal women struggle against the shadowy influence of Akhenaten, the infamous heretic Pharaoh. Akhenaten wields control of a strange, emerging religion unlike anything Egypt has seen. His power can’t be denied, but whoever can maintain her grip on the unpredictable Pharaoh will hold all of Egypt in her hands—and better still, will remain mistress of her own fate.
Tiy, once the undisputed might behind the throne, must choose to relinquish her hard-won influence, or manipulate the innocent in order to secure her hold on Akhenaten’s leash. Kiya, an idealistic foreign princess, will win Akhenaten with love—if he’s capable of feeling love at all. The celebrated beauty Nefertiti will use the Pharaoh for her own ends, turning the tables of a deadly political game to free herself from her ambitious father’s grasp. And Sitamun, kept imprisoned as the Pharaoh’s plaything, will defy the gods themselves to save her daughter from a similar fate.
Read it now!
Storm in the Sky
The Book of Coming Forth by Day: Part 2
By sheer force of the Pharaoh’s will, the City of the Sun rises from hot, barren sands. But as this monument to his strength flourishes, the king’s ties to sanity begin to fray. His religious zeal and unchecked power lead him to commit one atrocity after another, and soon those who dwell in the throne’s shadows must enter into a fatal conspiracy to prevent Egypt from crumbling altogether.
Nefertiti believes she has found a way to repay her father for his many wrongdoings. But her vengeance will cost what she holds most dear. Tiy, cast off from the court but still grappling for power, re-emerges to face the Pharaoh with a weapon unlike any he has encountered before. The burden of the throne’s security falls on young Baketaten—but she is not as fragile as she seems, and she will play a deadly game of deception to obtain what Egypt needs most: an heir to the throne. And Horemheb, tormented by love for a woman he can never have, will risk his own damnation when he swears to avenge an unimaginable loss.
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Eater of Hearts
The Book of Coming Forth by Day: Part 3
When Akhenaten finally goes too far and meets his bloody fate, the court of Egypt is plunged into chaos. The royal family’s most ambitious players are locked in a contest for the throne that can only end in victory for one… and death for the others.
Nefertiti returns from her exile, wielding more than just her wits. She has Tutankhamun, Egypt’s rightful heir. Smenkhkare’s idealism makes him popular with the common people, but will his sense of justice and maat protect him from the vicious politics of his relatives? Meritaten has found happiness at last… but when it all falls apart, blood ties won’t stop her from taking revenge. And Ankhesenamun is plunged into the fiercest conflict of all, racing against time to thwart Ay’s most insidious scheme.
Only one can hold the Horus Throne. The gods have set the stage for their final battle!
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Diana of Orchard Slope
A Green Gables Variation
Growing up is never easy. It's even harder when you have a mother who doesn't understand, a nagging sense of self-doubt, and a secret crush you can't confess...not even to your bosom friend.
L. M. Montgomery's timeless classic, Anne of Green Gables, has been reimagined from the perspective of Diana Barry, Anne's best friend and kindred spirit. As Diana and Anne navigate the path from childhood to their grown-up lives, parents, schoolmates, and Anne's well-meaning blunders contrive to keep them apart. But two girls destined for lifelong friendship can't be separated so easily...can they?
With the sweet charm and dreamy atmosphere of Montgomery's original story, Diana of Orchard Slope is sure to delight Anne fans, historical fiction readers, and lovers of the Jane Austen Fanfiction genre.
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Take Off Your Pants!
Outline Your Books for Faster, Better Writing
When it comes to writing books, are you a “plotter” or a “pantser?” Is one method really better than the other?
In this instructional ebook, author Libbie Hawker explains the benefits and technique of planning a story before you begin to write. She’ll show you how to develop a foolproof character arc and plot, how to pace any book for a can’t-put-down reading experience, and how to ensure that your stories are complete and satisfying without wasting time or words.
Hawker’s outlining technique works no matter what genre you write, and no matter the age of your audience. If you want to improve your writing speed, increase your backlist, and ensure a quality book before you even write the first word, this is the how-to book for you.
Take off your pants! It’s time to start outlining.
This Revised Edition includes answers to the most popular questions regarding Libbie Hawker's outlining method.
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