From the bestselling author of Leonardo's Swans comes a sweeping historical novel of art, beauty, power, and one of the world's greatest cultural controversies. For two hundred years, the Elgin Marbles or Parthenon Sculptures have stood in the British Museum at the center of a global debate. In Stealing Athena, Karen Essex tells their story through two remarkable women divided by centuries but united by ambition. At the height of the Napoleonic Wars, young Mary Nisbet, Countess of Elgin, uses charm and daring in Constantinople on the Sultan himself to help secure permission for her husband's goal strip the Parthenon of its treasures. Two thousand years earlier, Aspasia, philosopher, courtesan, and partner to Athens's most powerful man, Pericles, plays a key role as the city builds glorious monuments destined to change history. Rich with romance, intrigue, scandal, mythology, and high stakes, Stealing Athena brings two hidden women behind history's headlines brilliantly to life. "Stealing Athena firmly entrenches Karen Essex as one of the top historical novel writers of our time." - Bookreporter.com "Historical fiction at its finest." -St. Petersburg Times "A great adventure story. . . . Essex delves deeply into the lives and times of her characters in settings as diverse as ancient Greece and 18th-century Constantinople, France and Great Britain, and her women characters are spirited and memorable." -The Times-Picayune "Stealing Athena expounds on the weight of the past, the power of art, and the strength of women who exercised free will even when they had the fewest rights.... Uniquely relevant." -Los Angeles Times