Lost Shores of Thonis
A year ago, Thonis sank into the sea. Only three people survived: Azizi, Meryt, and Bakari. After Meryt, wife of the Egyptian king, dies unexpectedly, her friend Azizi, who’s still mourning the loss of her family, prepares to ritually end her life and reunite with Meryt and her loved ones… until Bakari pleads with her to reconsider. Bakari needs Azizi’s assistance to uncover a dark truth. He suspects Meryt was murdered, but who would dare to murder the king’s wife, especially one carrying the king’s heir? And could it have any connection with their lost home?
The story opens on “Day 1” with subsequent chapters illustrating the passing “Days” of Meryt’s 90-day mummification process. The author’s Historical Note admits to deliberately blending fact and fiction, resulting in a jumbling of periods. No specific year is identified in the book, nor can one be reasonably determined. To start, Thonis sank into the Mediterranean around 101 BCE. At that time, Egypt was ruled by the Ptolemies (not Egyptians). Contradictorily, in the book, the Egyptian king is building a pyramid for his burial, typical for the Old Kingdom (2686-2181 BCE); however, it’s being constructed in the Valley of the Kings, which was used between 1539–1075 BCE for rock-cut underground tombs. The story’s world-building elements span over 2500 years of history, from the first pyramid (2670 BCE) to Thonis’s sinking. For context, imagine today’s British royal family adopting Neolithic burial customs for the late Queen Elizabeth.
The result is a patchwork of the most recognizable and cliched aspects of ancient Egyptian culture and then stitching in some fantasy elements. While there’s good character development and emotional exploration, it couldn’t overcome the mildly predictable plot and the absurdly disjointed temporal mishmash of ancient Egyptian culture.
