Hannibal's Elephant Girl

In the year 226 BCE, the young Carthaginian commander Hannibal Barca is given an unusual and dangerous assignment: train sixty elephants for war.

These massive beasts must then be transported across the Mediterranean Sea to Iberia, where they will become living weapons in Carthage’s struggle against the fiercely independent tribes of the peninsula.

Among the elephants is Obolus, the largest and most powerful of them all. Two unlikely companions—Liada and the brilliant young Tin Tin Ban Sunia—become essential to Obolus’s care and training, forming a bond with the giant animal that will soon be tested by the brutal realities of war.

Meanwhile, far away in the southern Iberian kingdom of Andalusia, Princess Imilce Adriana Lucia Argantino of the Oretani lives a sheltered life within the walls of Almodóvar Castle. Curious about the world beyond her royal home, the adventurous young princess ventures into the surrounding forests.

There she encounters a stranger.

The meeting between the ambitious Carthaginian general and the fearless Iberian princess will alter the course of both their lives—and shape the future of the land that will one day be known as Spain.

From the training grounds of Carthage to the wild forests of Iberia, Hannibal’s Elephant Girl continues the sweeping historical saga of courage, loyalty, and destiny in the years leading to the great conflicts of the ancient world.