Where do the thoughts of a Writer come from?

A writer writes what she thinks, but where do the thoughts come from?

From her past and present…

From the world around her…

From what she sees, hears, smells, reads, does…

From what happens to her and hers…

A storyteller weaves a story, but where does the yarn come from?

From what happened and what didn’t…

From what should’ve have happened but didn’t…

From events and from people…

From what should be but isn’t...

“The Price of Nofret’s Nose” is a work of fiction. It’s story is about what happened and what didn’t, what must have happened but didn’t, and what should have been but wasn’t; and yet it’s also a story that has characters and reflections from the writer’s past and present and of what happened to her and hers.

The Price of Nofret’s Nose.

 

 

 

Hatshepsut – in Life and in Death

Hatshepsut is one of the first symbols of feminism that we see buried deep in the sands of time. Three thousand and five hundred years ago, she ruled Egypt more successfully than many other Pharaohs, and yet her monuments were defaced, and attempts were made to obliterate her from history.

Who was this woman Pharaoh who defied tradition and strapped a false beard to her chin? 

Imagine a young girl, about fourteen or fifteen, married to an aging Pharaoh, who finds herself widowed at the age of thirty and finds herself at the helm of the affairs of state – co-ruling Egypt with her two-year-old stepson. The infant pharaoh, still in his swaddling clothes would contribute little more than ear-splitting shrieks to the administration of Egypt. We see here, a capable woman, possibly ruling in the stead of a child, who is not her son.

She obviously was in a position to control the destiny of Egypt and also steer the career of the young Pharaoh, who, upon attaining majority, was promptly sent off to the Egypt-Syrian border to defend it.

Djeser Djeseru, the mortuary temple of Hatshepsut tells us a lot about this woman Pharaoh, and also introduces us to a possible paramour. Senenmut.

The Mist Maiden (Story)

For a fleeting moment, he saw her, and then there was just the mist that rose from the Nile and hovered over the calm surface of the water. She had disappeared. Just like that. Was she a wisp of memory rolled so thin by time that it had transformed into a shimmering film of nothingness? Or was she someone his tired imagination had conjured?
“No, she wasn’t a figment of your imagination,” said the old man who had once been a priest of Amun.
“A memory then?” he asked, anxious that the man might confirm it.
“No. She was something else,” replied his old hunchback companion whose eyes were nearly hidden under the lose folds of his lids, and who appeared to be as ancient as the necropolis at Saqqara.
“Then who?”
“She was a woman,” he answered.
“A real woman?” he queried, confused. “Where did she go?”
“She didn’t go anywhere,” replied the old man. “She is still there, on the bank of Nile.”
“But then, why can’t I see her anymore? Does she still live?”
The old man chortled. “Oh, she is. But you can’t, because you don’t.”

The Price of Nofret’s Nose – A Murder Mystery set in Ancient Egypt.

I’m glad to announce that “The Price of Nofret’s Nose” can now be pre-ordered on Amazon 🙂

Please click the following link to book your copy.

The Price of Nofret’s Nose: Honor & Murder in Ancient Egypt

Apparently everything is well in the Amaat Household.

The elder brother Idut is favored by Pharaoh and has been appointed administrator of the Net-uri quarry in the Bekhen valley. His wife Nofret is a lovely young woman who stays home with his blind mother, and his bright young brother Lumeri has now joined him at the quarry.

But when Idut falls to his death at the quarry, cracks begin to surface. Lumeri knows that his brother’s fall wasn’t an accident. In his quest to find justice for his brother, Lumeri discovers a truth that devastates him; and yet nothing can prepare him for the unexpected face of evil that awaits him at home.

In this tale of love & loyalty, greed & lust, and life & death, walk the streets of Qift and Memphis and stay in a noble’s house, where the price of a nose would be paid with lives, and the only thing standing between good and evil would be the loyalty of a slave.

A thrilling murder-mystery, “The Price of Nofret’s Nose,” is set in the New Kingdom, and it opens an intriguing window into the lives of the Ancient Egyptian nobility. As you turn its pages and lose yourself into it, it makes you recoil in horror, smile with hope, blush in anticipation, and sigh with satisfaction.

Thanks.

I wish all my friends in the virtual world and my dear visitors, a great year ahead 🙂

Toggled – A Dark Psychological Thriller

TOGGLED is a dark psychological thriller that makes you ask, “who lives in my neighborhood?”

A young girl’s one-sided infatuation for her mysterious neighbor, grows stronger than it should.
A handsome young inventor’s feelings for his mother turn into a passion that burns whiter than it should.
A young single mother battles the ghosts of her past as her love for her son runs deeper than it should.

Leah’s dangerous infatuation with her mysterious neighbor, Brice’s acute possessiveness for his mother, and Rachel’s career in forensic psychology, come together to weave a story that

Why Akhenaten became a Heretic?

I love the once-upon-a-time beginnings. They make dystopias appear utopian, so…

Once upon a time, there was a young prince, who co-ruled Egypt with his father. The young prince then became Pharaoh. However, this Pharaoh was unlike any other previous pharaoh. While his predecessors had accepted the supremacy of the priesthood of Amun, he decided to defy them.

His defiance was unique. He did something that had probably never crossed the mind of anyone until then.

Tutankhamun, Ay, and the Spinner of Dreams.

The heretic king Akhenaten and his beautiful wife Nefertiti had many daughters but no son, and while a daughter was the vessel that carried the royal blood, she couldn’t be the ruler of Egypt. Though, in past, some walls were etched with the stories of Queen Hatshepsut, the woman-king who wore a false beard and ruled, everyone knew that by strapping that false beard to her chin, she had committed a crime against the gods, and Akhenaten was sure that his new and only god Aten wouldn’t be happy if one of his daughters had to wear the double crown upon her brow.

So when one of the lesser wives of Akhenaten finally gave birth to a son, everyone rejoiced, but their joy was pathetically short-lived, as they soon realized that the young prince was born with deformities that wouldn’t let him live a full life, let alone a long one.

Yonder Worlds?

Yonder worlds are worlds that are far away – apparently beyond our reach. Buried beneath the sands of time, hidden behind the veil of mystery, these worlds reveal themselves to us through our imagination.

Yonder Worlds are worlds that call me. They torture my imagination and demand that I etch them on paper. These are worlds that are ancient, future, or imaginary.

Through this blog, I hope to share my glimpses of these worlds. I cannot say which worlds would beckon me in future, but for now Ancient Egypt has me in its thralls.

Who am I? 

I am just a storyteller on a journey of imagination.

Image Credits:
Nefertiti’s Bust in Berlin Museum.
By Rüdiger Stehn from Kiel, Deutschland [CC BY-SA 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)%5D, via Wikimedia Commons)