Historical fiction at its best - an emotional and inspiring story about a strong woman and her influence on a whole tribe.

As the nomads roamed the Asian steppes, in some tribes the women fought side by side as equals with men - at least until they got pregnant.

Akmaral loves her life training for battle from a young age, mastering horse riding as well as archery and fighting with spear and blade.

There is tense rivalry between her and the strongest man, Erzhan, and they can't seem to decide if they want to kill each other, or kiss...

To protect their people, the must fight side by side, but further tension is created when they capture Timor, the leader of one of their attackers. Akmaral is mesmerised by Timor, but Erzhan does not trust him.

I thoroughly enjoyed this tale of a society where women and men fight together, where loyalty is a must for survival and where making peace with war is a must.

A dazzling landscape of warrior women on horses — the Sauromatae serving the war god Targitai — and ana-women (childbearing women) in yurts. it's about making artwork of deer, it's about the magic of turning into birds, in a land where death is a returning home, even if "you cannot go back." Physical and spiritual. About social bonds, prediction, doubt, and courage.

An ancient matriarchal tribe of nomads living on the Ukok Plateau, in the Altai Mountains of southern Siberia. The story centers on the life of the anointed girl child, Akmaral, whose extraordinary bravery, and fully realized humanity, make her into a heroine.
A highly imagined civilization from 2,400 years ago — it’s shimmers with authenticity with all the great details… Smells of horses, aches of a warrior who it’s also a mother and a lover.
Amaral loves her tribe with its relentless God, the silent captured enemy. She takes into her life, and the child she bears him.
But what if the stranger turns on her because she loves too much?
This is an incredible historical fiction novel.
The author took great effort - skillful diligence research to bring us (readers) this magnificent book.

Dedicated to the author’s mother and all women who must fight for peace. …. and a little story of how this book would not have been written if it were not for the authors son …. (a touching-inspiring awakening that happened when he was only two years old)

In a society where men and women fight together - side by side - spears and arrowheads - Akmaral is our heroine. She was orphaned as a young girl… then grew up to become Mother-of-her-tribe > a leader of her Normadic matriarchal tribe - Central Asian Steppe in the 5th century.
We take an amazing adventurous journey facing love, loss, betrayals, fears, death, and determination.

“These fierce ancient warrior women existed….
……woman warrior making peace with making war”.

This book is a masterpiece to say the least. Lindbergh really nailed bringing this book to life with descriptive character and world building. This book is one of the first historical fictions that I truly fell in love with. At first I had my doubts but I am beyond happy that I took the dive. I love that we see Akmaral life from child to adult and everything in between. I will definitely recommend this book to anyone who loves historical fiction.

Thank you NetGalley and Regal House Publishing for providing an ARC ebook.

As someone who has been reading about nomadic life on the Eurasian steppe since my undergraduate days and writing novels about that life focused on women for more than a decade, I am always on the alert for fiction set in the grasslands that run from China to the Black Sea. Vast but scarcely populated, subject to extremes of climate, inhospitable to agriculture but perfect for maintaining large herds of grazing animals, the steppes gave rise to a warrior culture based on archery and horses that maintained itself almost unchanged until modern weaponry, industrial life, and, most recently, climate change imperiled the ancient ways. In the last seventy years or so, archeologists have uncovered burial grounds that go back millennia, adding to our knowledge of the earliest stages of steppe life.

Judith Lindbergh’s second novel explores the life of a leader among the Sauromatae (also known as Sarmatians), a people who lived in an area between modern-day Mongolia and Kyrgyzstan but who later migrated west, where they may have given rise to the myth of the Amazons, recorded by the Greek historian Herodotus. We meet her heroine, Akmaral, near the end of her life, when she is reminiscing about the events that brought her to her present state—queen of a united people forged from what she calls “a disparate multitude of wandering herders.” From there, we flip back to Akmaral at the age of five, and follow her as she fulfills her destiny.

Akmaral is a complex and interesting character, and it is easy to get caught up in her struggle to find her place, keep her friends, and cope with the difficult but attractive Erzhan, as well as the Scythian horsemen who increasingly push into Sauromatae territory. But equally compelling are the detailed descriptions of daily life on the steppe, which sweep a reader into this long-lost and, to most people today, unfamiliar past.

I plan to conduct a written interview with this author on my blog (link below) around the time of the book’s release in early May.