Victorian gentlewoman Amelia Peabody Emerson and her archaeologist husband are busy raising their young son; yet Amelia dreams only of the dust and detritus of ancient civilizations. Happily, circumstances are about to demand their immediate presence in Egypt. Sir Henry Baskerville had just discovered a tomb in Luxor when he promptly died under bizarre circumstances. The tabloids scream of “the Curse of the Pharaohs!”
Amelia and her husband arrive to find the camp in disarray and the workers terrified. A ghost even appears. It is not at all what Amelia considers an atmosphere conducive to scientific discovery. Thus the indomitable Victorian sets about bringing order to chaos—and herself close to danger. How Amelia triumphs over evil and those who would stand between her and her beloved antiquities makes for a delightfully spirited adventure.
Elizabeth Peters earned her Ph.D. in Egyptology from the University of Chicago’s famed Oriental Institute. During her fifty-year career, she wrote more than seventy novels and three nonfiction books on Egypt. She received numerous writing awards and, in 2012, was given the first Amelia Peabody Award, created in her honor. She died in 2013, leaving a partially completed manuscript of The Painted Queen.
Susan O’Malley (a.k.a. Bernadette Dunne) is the winner of numerous AudioFile Earphones Awards and has twice been nominated for the prestigious Audie Award. She studied at the Royal National Theatre in London and the Studio Theater in Washington, DC, and has appeared at the Kennedy Center and off Broadway. She lives in Brooklyn, New York.