In this impressive novel, the grandeur and mystery of Ancient Egypt comes vividly to life. It tells the story of a woman who believed she was divine, and of three men who could not believe they were.

Brilliant, beautiful and ambitious, Queen Hatshepsut dominated her despairing husband and, after his death, became the first female to wear the double crown of Pharaoh. Her young stepson had to throw off the iron yoke of this amazing woman, who was aided and abetted in all her schemes by her architect-lover Senmut, surely the most artistic rogue in history. Her absolute power and belief in her divine origins became the test and measure of Thoth, who eventually emerged as Thutmose III, creator of the vastest empire mankind had yet known.

Dramatic and intriguing as the plot of any modern suspense novel, Mrs. McGraw's book will engross any reader. The author brings to this stirring panorama of an incredibly far-off but fascinating time an impressive scholarship that never intrudes upon the story. She makes these people seem as real as though we ourselves walked with them in the narrow, teeming streets of Thebes. We hear the onion-seller cry his wares in the guttural tongue of the Black Land, or sit with Pharaoh in the seats of the mighty weighing the problems of good and evil that plagued men—and kings too—then as they do now.

History has furnished the author with an abundance of rich detail and a great theme: she has added nothing but the magic.

From the dust jacket