Pillar of Fire

“Someday,” said the tribute-offering called Nofret, “I shall be the chief of the queen’s servants. Then I can call myself whatever I please.”

Nofret is the daughter of a Hittite nobleman, captured by enemies from Mitanni and sent as tribute to the Pharaoh in Egypt: the strange, otherworldly Akhenaten, who rules from his raw new city of Amarna. As servant to his daughter, she witnesses the rise and fall of Akhenaten and his one god, the lives and deaths of his queen and his heirs, and the brief reign of Tutankhamon. Then, freed at last from Egypt, she embarks on a years-long journey into the desert oases of Sinai, and there finds love and family.

But Egypt is not done with her. Her husband’s people are still enslaved, and a prophet has risen with a mission from his one god: to set them free. Though Nofret does not share his faith, duty and loyalty inspire her to follow him, and love for the people who have accepted her as one of their own.