Product Description
She was the last surviving member of the glorious Eighteenth Dynasty, a dynasty that had produced many of Egypt’s greatest pharaohs: Ankhsenamun, daughter of the “heretic” Pharaoh Akhenaten, founder of the world’s first monotheistic religion, and his Great Wife, the beautiful Queen Nefertiti. Now her brother-husband, King Tutankhamun, was dead, killed in a chariot accident while on a hunting expedition.
In this massively inbred family, after many generations of brother-sister and father-daughter marriages, the royal couple had never succeeded in producing a living heir – only a pair of stillborn babies with terrible birth defects. Now, with the news that her husband was dead, Ankhsenamun was faced with limited choices, none of them good: allow her dynasty to die out; marry Egypt’s strong man, General Horemheb, and face being murdered by his scheming wife; or marry a son of Egypt’s arch enemy and risk the wrath of her people. Could she find another way?
Her grandfather could take the throne and protect her for a while, but he was an old man whose own heir was dead. Who could she turn to? Certainly not the General, a power-hungry commoner she considered her “servant”! The King of the Hittites, with his many marriageable sons? Or the handsome Habiru trader Amram, one of the Children of Israel, who had long acted as a royal spy in the lands of foreign kings?
Amram had served her loyally for many years, as a purveyor of exotic foreign goods and international espionage. He had served as her clandestine messenger to foreign kings, guarding both her secrets and her safety. Could he now serve her in a more personal and intimate way to extricate her from her dynastic quandary? Her heart beat faster, even thinking about it....
But in the end, she would have to choose between her heart and her throne.
In this massively inbred family, after many generations of brother-sister and father-daughter marriages, the royal couple had never succeeded in producing a living heir – only a pair of stillborn babies with terrible birth defects. Now, with the news that her husband was dead, Ankhsenamun was faced with limited choices, none of them good: allow her dynasty to die out; marry Egypt’s strong man, General Horemheb, and face being murdered by his scheming wife; or marry a son of Egypt’s arch enemy and risk the wrath of her people. Could she find another way?
Her grandfather could take the throne and protect her for a while, but he was an old man whose own heir was dead. Who could she turn to? Certainly not the General, a power-hungry commoner she considered her “servant”! The King of the Hittites, with his many marriageable sons? Or the handsome Habiru trader Amram, one of the Children of Israel, who had long acted as a royal spy in the lands of foreign kings?
Amram had served her loyally for many years, as a purveyor of exotic foreign goods and international espionage. He had served as her clandestine messenger to foreign kings, guarding both her secrets and her safety. Could he now serve her in a more personal and intimate way to extricate her from her dynastic quandary? Her heart beat faster, even thinking about it....
But in the end, she would have to choose between her heart and her throne.
