The Oracle of Avaris (Secrets of the Sands, 3)
Lower Egypt, 3500 BCE. In this third book in the Secrets of the Sands trilogy, the story continues nonstop from the previous volume. As a new reader, I was completely bewildered at first. I stuck with it, and soon was entranced by this colorful, fast-moving story of three fictional friends—Sesha, Reb, and Paser—trying to find a missing oracle, heal a gravely wounded warrior, help discern who should be the next king of the Hyksos, and prevent war between Upper and Lower Egypt.
New readers should start with the first and second books, Lost Scroll of the Physician and Desert Prince, as The Oracle of Avaris does not really stand alone. Having said that, I enjoyed the immediacy of Sesha’s first-person, present-tense point of view, the fast pacing, and the colorful window into ancient Egypt’s Second Intermediate Period. An author’s note tells us that this was a mysterious time and that while the aristocratic characters are based on real people, very little is known about them. I liked the way that magic and medicine seemed to meld seamlessly into healing methods that would make sense even today. The story sent me straight to my computer for more research into this little-known Egyptian period. It is juvenile fiction, but I think adults would enjoy it, too.
