Hi, this is Zibi Owens, and you're listening to Totally Booked with Zibby. Formerly, moms don't have time to read books. In my daily show, I interview today's latest, best-selling, buzziest, or underrated authors and story creators, whose work I think is worth your time. As a bookstore owner, publisher, author, and obviously podcaster, I get a comprehensive

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Fiona Davis is the author of The Stolen Queen.

She is also the New York Times best-selling author of several novels, including The Spectacular,

The Magnolia Palace, and the Lions of

Fifth Avenue, which was a Good Morning America Book Club pick. She is a graduate of the Columbia

Journalism School and is based in New York City. Welcome, Fiona. Thank you for coming back on

my show for like the millions time because you just keep writing books so quickly.

And thank you for helping us, you know, keep getting the word out about them. I truly appreciate that. Of course, of course. I mean, all these New York City landmarks, how could I not? I mean, we've gone from the Chelsea Hotel to the New York Public Library. I mean, we're all over the place and now here we are at the Met. So, yeah, I might as well just take cabs to everywhere you write books and, you know, do a Fiona Davis in New York Day. Actually, have you done that? Have you done something like that? There is a book club in Boston that comes down every year. They come in a bus. There's like 45 of them. They're from South Boston. So they show up. They've been, you know, drinking the whole way. And we do tours. We go all the different

places that were mentioned in whatever book it was that year. They've come every year. It's so much

fun. That's really cool. Really creative. Okay. Well, this year, you're taking us into the Met and going

back a couple decades. I mean, maybe more than just a couple. Yeah, I know. It feels like a couple to me. Right? I mean, what is? 1978 is when it starts, right? Exactly. I'm like, well, I was alive. This is an historical fiction. So there you go. Okay. Annie and Charlotte, take us away. Go. Where did this come from? Tell us the whole story. Sure, sure. So the idea for this book

actually came from this article in the New York Times about the Met Gala in 2018 when Kim

Kardashian showed up in this beautiful gold dress. It was all sparkly and fit it. It was beautiful.

And she stood next to this sarcophagus that the Met had just acquired the year before for $4 million.

And the sarcophagus was covered in gold just as she was. It was this cool photo went viral to the

point where the smuggler who had robbed that sarcophagus saw it and mentioned to an undercover informant

that he hadn't gotten paid. And then it got to the Manhattan DA's office and they investigated

and it turns out

...