Maroon King: A Novel

This is epic historical fiction from bestselling author Craig Shreve inspired by Bayano, a real man who threw off the shackles of slavery in 16th-century Panama to create a hidden city deep in the jungle, protecting his people but igniting a war with a brutal conquistador.

Is it better to be a good man than a king?

Emerging from the wreckage of a Spanish slave ship on the shores of Panama, Bayano decides before he sets foot on the sand that he will never allow his people to be owned. Once a betrayed General, now thrust into the uneasy role of a leader in an unknown world, he guides his fellow escapees into the untamed jungle, to build a home, to wage a war, and to defy an empire.

Not far away, Pedro de Ursúa also arrives in the New World, an unproven younger son from Spain. Obsessed with the legend of a city of gold, he’ll do anything to win his commission and discover the secret riches he is certain are his destiny.

When the two men’s fates clash, violence and destiny erupt in a war that changes the fate of more than one empire.

Based on a real historical figure and the true hidden cities and Maroon warriors that resisted one of the world’s most brutal colonialist forces through sheer wit and strategy, The Maroon King is a bloody tale of machinations and tactics, home and longing, and what it truly means to be a protector, a warrior, a man, and a king. Shreve’s sophomore novel is a spectacular epic for readers of Lawrence Hill and Abraham Verghese.