She was queen of all Persia, beautiful and mysterious. In a royal court rife with intrigue, she was also the ultimate coup for a spymaster: she was perfectly placed to influence the most powerful king in the ancient Near East. Only when her people faced certain genocide was the Bible's highest-placed sleeper agent activated.

In The Queen & The Spymaster, a novel based on the story of Esther, award-winning author and scholar Sandra E. Rapoport, inspired by midrashic legends, hews to the ancient text while imagining the suspenseful, gripping and ultimately triumphant backstory of the unlikely heroes of Xerxes' Persia.