Hercules Knot is a forthcoming historical novel by Marjorie A. May which is set in the early sixth century during the reign of Justinian Augustus, the last great Roman emperor. The heroine is Xia, who is born noble but reared without that knowledge. When it finally comes to light, her death is sought by someone with lofty ambitions and a secret to conceal.

After her mother’s untimely death, Xia’s innocent, protected world in an ancient monastery on Mount Ida on the Aegean Sea is upended. Xia is sent to Constantinople, the bustling, fascinating, and powerful ‘Queen of Cities,’ to live with a Christian friend of her mother’s who will take religious training seriously. Soon, Xia is reacquainted with her love, Remus Quintus, a pagan soldier from Ravenna stationed at the imperial palace. The young woman is torn between taking religious orders of Christian chastity or becoming Remus’s concubine, thus leaving the only home she has ever known.

In the spring of 542, the heart-wrenching decision is entirely forgotten when she and the half-million residents of Constantinople–and then the entire Mediterranean region–are horrified and perplexed when their prosperous lives are engulfed by the bubonic plague. On all sides, chaos, death, and horror surround Xia. As the months pass, cemeteries overflow, commerce ceases, and food is scarce. Then criminals and looters threaten those still surviving. Will the kind Bishop of Nicaea help? Will he aid Xia’s return to the peaceful world of Pantokrator monastery so that she can take orders? Or will her rejected lover Remus Quintus return from battle in the west to save her?

Hercules Knot is novel of love, survival, betrayal, ambition, and the cultural and spiritual tension between Christian and pagan faiths that marked the long transition from Late Antiquity to the Middle Ages. It will be published in 2025.

Keep an eye out for an excerpt to be published in the coming months!