Inspired by the actual plot of a concubine in the harem of Ramses III to poison him, Pauline Gedge brings the reader on a journey with the restless, willful child of a village midwife and her soldier-farmer husband in the tiny hamlet of Aswat, on the edge of the desert far to the south of the royal capital.
Even before she has reached puberty Thu rejects the only future that appears to be possible for her – that of following in her mother’s footsteps as midwife and marrying a son of one of the local peasants. Still, in her fantasies of another kind of life, she would never have imagined herself as one of Pharaoh’s prized concubines. How this comes about and what happens after she falls out of favour is a rich and enthralling story.
House of Dreams (Book I) (released as Lady of the Reeds in the US)
House of Illusions (Book II)