Product Description

Guided only by a crumbling map that took the Peaboby-Emerson clan to Tarek's oasis a decade earler, they head for the Sudan. There Rames, now 19 years old, realises he must face up to his feeling for Nefret, while his mother and father confront terrible forces secretly arrayed against them.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #2199991 in Books
• Published on: 2005-04-28
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 310 pages

Amazon.com Review
Amelia Peabody and her husband Emerson, along with their son Ramses and foster daughter Nefret, are summoned back to the Lost Oasis, a hidden stronghold in the western desert whose existence they discovered many years ago (in The Last Camel Died At Noon) and have kept secret from the entire world, including their fellow Egyptologists. According to Merasen, the brother of the ruling monarch, their old friend Prince Tarek is in grave danger and needs their help, however it's not until they retrace their steps back to the Oasis, with its strange mixture of Meroitic and Egyptian cultures, that they learn the real reason for their journey. There's no better company on an archaeological expedition than the Father of Curses and the Lady Doctor, their beautiful Anglo-Egyptian ward, and Ramses, the Demon Brother who loves her, as Peters once again demonstrates in the latest historical mystery in this immensely popular series. If you haven't met the indomitable Amelia yet, this intriguing tale is a great place to start! --Jane Adams

From Publishers Weekly
Intrepid archeologists Amelia Peabody, husband Emerson and son Ramses have shared numerous exciting adventures, but the 16th volume in MWA Grand Master Peters's bestselling series will have particular appeal for fans. The author fills in a gap in the chronological record (1907–1908) and revisits the hidden city of the Lost Oasis, whose discovery was recounted in The Last Camel Died at Noon (1991). The doughty explorers, including foster daughter Nefret, who is from the Lost Oasis, heed the call of a messenger purportedly from that realm's ruler, Tarek. Peters, as her many accolades would suggest, knows precisely what she is doing as she spins a tale of romance, derring-do, bravery and, of course, deceptions, betrayals and disguises in the classic tradition of H. Rider Haggard, if with tongue often in cheek. Familiar enemies surface (bureaucrats, soldiers of fortunes, despoilers of antiquities, etc.) and dog the group as they travel by ship, boat and camel from their English home to the remote desert location that will test their mettle once again. Peters's knowledge of ancient Egypt and the excavations and desecrations that accompanied early archeological attempts in the region allow her to dress her melodrama with authentic trappings that add greatly to the enjoyment.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist
In an appealing change of pace, "the Grand Dame of the Historical Mystery" steps further back in the life of parasol-wielding Amelia Peabody and her family--a time long before Ramses and Nefret got hitched and Setho's real identity was revealed. It's a mere 10 years since Emerson, Peabody, and Ramses fled the opulent City of the Holy Mountain with 13-year-old Nefret, paving the way for young Tarek to become king. Now it appears that Tarek needs their help once again, and the family, Ramses and Nefret both grown, returns to the remote "Lost Oasis," where they have long been revered--only to find themselves victims of a ruse designed to help a usurper legitimize his shaky hold on the kingdom. As usual, the Emersons, who "attract farcical situations the way sugar draws flies," have plenty of intrigue to contend with, but "proper" Amelia rises to the occasion, exercising her unusual vocabulary (rampageous, sequestrian), her clever stratagems, and her talent for reining in her vociferous husband and her impetuous son in time to set things straight. A highly entertaining entry in a series that continues to delight. Stephanie Zvirin
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Customer Reviews

"Conquer by confusion, I always say"
There comes a time in every series that covers a large number of years when it isn't possible to go further without the main characters discovering the secret of eternal life. Elizabeth Peters' Emersons - Egyptologists, amateur sleuths, and eccentrics par excellence - have reached a point where the era they chronicle is gradually coming to a close. Trust Peter's to find a solution, though, a new cache of papers that document the 'missing years' of the family's madcap career across the tombs and monuments of Egypt.

Set just previous to the blossoming of Ramses' relationship with Nefret, 'Guardian of the Horizon' documents the return to the 'Lost Oasis,' a last hidden survival of ancient Egypt - the Meroitic civilization that the Emerson's first discovered in the Sudan ('The Last Camel Died at Noon'). Readers will recall that the Holy City was where the Emerson's found Nefret, whom they late adopted. Now, ten years later, Merasen, a young noble, appears in England with a message from Tarek, king of the Lost Oasis, and a close friend of the family. There is illness in the Sudan and it threatens the survival of this hidden civilization. Amelia, Emerson, Ramses, and Nefret quickly set out.

For Amelia and Emerson, setting out on a secret journey means that only half of Egypt knows that something is up. As soon as word gets out that they intend to return to the Sudan to 'excavate,' a whole host of shady characters a drawn by the legends of hidden treasure that are rumored to be at the Lost Oasis. Of course, that means trouble, and the journey to the Sudan is marred by violence, intrusion, and countless twists and turns as the Emerson's carry out one elusive maneuver after another.

When they finally arrive at their destination they discover that nothing is as they expected. Instead of a sick king, they find themselves embroiled in a series of adventures that mix politics, religion, and, of course, just a bit of treasure. While a bit slow in developing, the book builds to a classic Peters' finish, with the Emerson's concocting on scheme after another as they try to extricate themselves unharmed and save the kingdom at the same time.

Elizabeth Peters does a fine job of returning the reader to the Emerson's past without recreating what was originally one of the family's most irritating periods. Instead, the writer allows Amelia and company just enough additional maturity to keep the story interesting without the extreme vaudeville that marked her work at that time. While any reader knows that a certain amount of the experience of reading one of the Emerson stories is rolling one's eyes at some of the more hysterical displays, that has been kept to a low roar. I enjoyed the book, and think that any other fan will do so as well.

A little disappointing
Don't get me wrong, this book was as riotously funny and exciting as readers have come to expect from this series. But it felt to me like Peters was still trying to find her characters between the periods of their lives that she's chronicled before. The result was shaky, I often found myself hunting in the (chronologically) later and earlier books to get a feel for whether a character would have said that or acted that way, at this point in his or her development. Partly because the events of this book were never mentioned in chronologically later books, as Amelia so frequently does, it came across as sort of marooned in time and place. Yes, the book hadn't been written yet, but it didn't feel to me like part of the subtext of the series. I would hate to think the series were running out of steam, but I have to wonder, with so many tidy happy endings made and enemies killed off or reformed, what's left? If Peters plans to continue these forays into the past, I'll look forward to the next books-- but with some reservations.

Far from her best effort.
I was looking forward to this book, as I do with all of EP's works. I was so disappointed with this book, I had to read it again just to make sure I hadn't imagined it. It felt as if she had written most of this book some time ago, got stuck, and decided later to slap an ending onto it and release it for publication. As another reader noted, there was no reference to the events in this book in any of the other books that followed this one chronologically. I thought that odd, since surely Amelia would have told Emerson at some point later that Sethos was the 'friend'.

The idea to return to the Lost Oasis was a good one, but the execution left something to be desired. Unlike other readers, I was not shocked nor disppointed with Ramses' involvement with Daria (he is human, after all) but I thought her character was not developed enough for me to care about her one way or the other. A little more information on her history would have helped there. I also thought Nefret acted out of character; she is more strong-willed than this book would indicate.

Go ahead and buy this book if you have the rest of the Amelia Peabody series. If you pick and choose only the best of Elizabeth Peters, you can safely skip this one, as it adds nothing to the overall series.