51 pages • 1 hour read
The Stolen Queen
A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 28-34Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 28 Summary: “Charlotte”
Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of death.
Annie recognizes the young woman depicted in the framed photo at Heba’s shop: She is Mona, a volunteer at the Met. Annie concludes that Mona is Heba’s daughter, meaning that Mona must have been the one to steal Charlotte’s research and the Cerulean Queen statue. They rush back to New York to confront Mona. They tell her that if she returns Charlotte’s research, they won’t tell anyone about her involvement in the theft of the statue. Mona speaks passionately about Ma’at and the value of repatriating Egyptian artifacts. She admits that she became a volunteer to have access to the Met and that she switched the butterflies with moths to create a distraction.
They ask Mona about her past and her relationship with the collar necklace. Mona explains that her father (who also ran an antique gallery) had the necklace hidden and that she found it by accident as a child. When she understood what it was, she stole it from him and subsequently loaned it to the Met using fake documents. Mona doesn’t know where her father got the necklace. When Mona explains that her father was English, Charlotte shows her the photo of Henry, and Mona confirms that Henry is her father, although she always knew him by the name Darius Farid. Astonished, Charlotte wonders if Mona is her long-lost daughter.
Chapter 29 Summary: “Annie”
Mona and Charlotte ascertain that, based on her birthdate, Mona is not Charlotte’s daughter. As Mona becomes increasingly confused, Charlotte and Annie explain that they have just returned from Egypt, where they met Heba, and that they located the Cerulean Queen statue. They also know the entire process by which Mona got the Cerulean Queen statue back to Egypt (shipping it in a box of cheap imitation King Tut statues). They reveal to Mona that “Nasr, Leon Pitcairn, and [her] mother have all been arrested, and there will be more Egyptian arrests announced soon” (296). The Met’s security team arrests Mona. She alludes to knowing where Charlotte’s daughter is but swears never to reveal this information.
Charlotte explains that she is going to go to Switzerland to track down Henry; Annie offers to accompany her, but she wants to go alone.
Chapter 30 Summary: “Charlotte”
Before leaving New York, Charlotte talks to Mark; they both agree that they want different things and end the relationship. She also meets with her friend Helen, who has inspected some of the slides of images that Charlotte brought back from Egypt. Together, Charlotte and Helen use the images and some of the Met’s records to confirm that the erasure of Hathorkare’s images was ordered much later than conventionally believed. This effectively proves Charlotte’s theory that Hathorkare was a respected ruler and that “Saukemet II was worried about his son being trounced by a female rival, not angry at his long-dead stepmother” (306). Charlotte abruptly quits her job, realizing that she wants to spend the remainder of her career conducting independent research in Egypt.
Chapter 31 Summary: “Annie”
Diana Vreeland asks to meet with Annie. She invites Annie to return to her job now that it is clear that Annie had nothing to do with the Cerulean Queen’s theft. Annie agrees to work as Diana’s assistant and help plan next year’s Met Gala. As Annie is leaving the museum, she overhears a man asking for Charlotte; she recognizes him as Henry.
Chapter 32 Summary: “Charlotte”
Annie calls Charlotte and tells her that Henry is at the Met, asking for her. Charlotte rushes from her office to the main entrance. She and Henry slip away to a quiet corner to talk. He explains that he learned that Heba and Mona had both been arrested; Mona told him that Charlotte was implicated in the arrest, so he rushed to New York. Henry claims that he had always believed that Charlotte died in the shipwreck. He also explains that Leon had already stolen the artifacts when he asked Henry to help him smuggle them out in exchange for a cut of the profits. Henry was feeling insecure about his ability to provide for his new wife and daughter and was susceptible to Leon’s promises that he could profit from getting involved in the theft.
Henry continues to tell his side of the story: He tried to reach out to Charlotte’s parents, but they lied and told him that she had died. Charlotte realizes with horror that her mother (on her deathbed) tried to confess to having misled Henry. Henry eventually began a relationship with Heba, and they conceived Mona. This confirms that Mona (while she is Henry’s daughter) is not Layla. Heba left Henry after finding out about Henry’s first marriage. Mona gradually became more strident about her Egyptian heritage and the belief that Egyptian antiquities belonged in Egypt. She met Leon and began working with him and Ma’at. Charlotte begs Henry to tell her what happened to Layla.
Chapter 33 Summary: “Annie”
Annie trails behind Charlotte and Henry, eavesdropping on their conversation. Henry explains that Layla was lost in the shipwreck and that he is certain she is dead. Charlotte counters that Mona claimed to know where Layla is. As she listens to the conversation, Annie suddenly realizes what Mona meant.
Chapter 34 Summary: “Charlotte”
Two months have passed; Charlotte is now living and working in Cairo. She has recovered her research into Hathorkare and looks forward to publishing it. Annie has been working with Diana Vreeland but has come to Egypt to reunite with Charlotte, and Henry has also joined them. All three of them are now meeting with Fatima, the young woman who worked at the hotel where Charlotte and Annie first stayed. They have confirmed that she is Layla but have given her time to agree to meet with them.
Fatima explains that she knew Charlotte was her mother when she first interacted with her. Fatima found out that she had been adopted when she was a teenager and researched the shipwreck. She surmised that her true identity was Layla Smith. When Fatima encountered Henry and Mona at the hotel, she recognized him as her father. Although Fatima was too shy to approach Henry, she later pulled Mona aside to explain that she believed she was Henry’s daughter (and thus Mona’s half-sister). This explains why Mona could subsequently taunt Charlotte by saying that she knew the location of Charlotte’s daughter.
Charlotte and Fatima are happy to reunite, and for Charlotte especially, “the dark clouds of her past ha[ve] lifted. Her daughter [i]s alive” (331). She plans to live in Egypt indefinitely, pursuing her career and getting to know Fatima.
Chapters 28-34 Analysis
The final section of the novel resolves several of the key conflicts and provides a happy ending in which Charlotte is reunited with her lost child. The reunion between Fatima (Layla) and Charlotte develops the theme of Complex Loyalties Between Mothers and Daughters: They immediately feel a sense of love and connection to one another, but they have also missed out on decades of each other’s lives. Davis depicts the reunion as bittersweet, with Charlotte lamenting “all the birthdays spent wondering about the missing, and the choices they’d made to avoid further pain” (331). When Fatima explains that she avoided searching for her biological parents because she did not want to hurt her adoptive parents, the theme takes on new nuances. Fatima chose to protect one of her mothers by tolerating the loss and absence of the other.
Although it is not explicitly discussed, Fatima’s decision not to track down her birth parents may have reflected her ambivalent status between cultures and religions. Charlotte and Henry are both white and, respectively, American and British. While Fatima shares their genetic heritage, she has grown up immersed in Egyptian culture. Her name and the reference to her wearing a headscarf imply that she, like many Egyptians, is a practicing Muslim (Fatima was the daughter of the prophet Muhammad). This might potentially introduce a further cultural divide between her and her birth parents. Fatima’s liminal status as both Egyptian and not-Egyptian echoes debates about whether artifacts belong in their home country or in a place where they have been adopted and beloved. The novel ends with space for her to continue her character arc and forge a new relationship with her parents. Fatima’s willingness to meet Henry and Charlotte and engage with these possibilities reflects the theme of Resilience in the Face of Personal Loss. Her adoptive parents have died, but she now has the opportunity to develop a relationship with new parental figures.
In a novel that centers the theme of Negative Responses to Women’s Ambition, the antagonist is a woman. Mona is formidably intelligent and determined because she executes a complex and multi-faceted plan to succeed in stealing the Cerulean Queen statue and smuggling it back to Egypt. Mona is depicted as a complex character whose motives are partially sympathetic. Her biological connection to Henry and Fatima means that she is almost family for Charlotte—Charlotte even considers that Mona could be her daughter, which reveals that she can feel a sense of connection to a woman who has wronged her. Because Annie and Charlotte’s discussions have explored the ethics of antiquities being removed from their country of origin, Davis presents Mona’s motivations seriously. However, Mona operates in an illicit and secretive fashion, generating chaos, confusion, and grief. In the world of the novel, loss is bearable, but secrecy is devastating. Mona’s actions, like Charlotte’s parents deciding to keep Henry’s visit a secret, create an ambiguous loss. Charlotte might have been able to cope with a transparent decision for the Cerulean Queen statue to be returned to Egypt, just as she might have been able to cope with a conclusive death. However, the narrative shows that abrupt and mysterious losses (whether of people or of beloved artifacts) are as devastating.
Mona’s greater crime is refusing to reveal information that could reunite Fatima and Charlotte. However, her motivations are also complex: She snarls at Charlotte, “[Y]ou go after my mother? This is what you get in return” (297). Like many other characters in the novel, complicated family loyalties and a fierce love motivate Mona. She denies Charlotte information about her daughter because she knows that this is what will hurt Charlotte the most, and she can only infer this because of the close and loving bond she shares with her mother. Mona is presumably going to be punished for her actions, and the resolution of the conflict requires her downfall. Despite this, Davis presents her as a complex character and not as a pure villain.
Unlock all 51 pages of this Study GuidePlus, gain access to 9,100+ more expert-written Study Guides.
Including features:
Related Titles
By Fiona Davis
