Books
Lord Hani Mysteries
Finalist Best Series 2022--Chanticleer Book Awards
Bird in a Snare
When Hani, an Egyptian diplomat under Akhenaten, is sent to investigate the murder of a useful bandit leader in Syria, he encounters corruption, tangled relationships, and yet more murder. His investigation is complicated by the new king’s religious reforms, which have struck Hani’s own family to the core. Hani’s mission is to amass enough evidence for his superiors to prosecute the wrongdoers despite the king’s protection—but not just every superior can be trusted. And maybe not even the king!
Hani is set to investigate thefts from the king’s household that turn out to be related to a more sinister attempt on the king’s life. Meanwhile, witnesses to the crown prince’s dodgy birth begin to die, and Hani fears for his daughter and her friend, who were also present. More secrets emerge about the prince’s identity, and Hani finds himself caught between the government and the radical revolutionaries who want to restore Amun-Ra by civil war, among them the queen, whom Hani has sworn to serve. Can Hani reconcile his desire for peace with his devotion to the King of the Gods?
The Crocodile Makes No Sound
Gold Medal for adult fiction--The Wishing Shelf Book Awards 2022
Four years into Akhenaten’s new regime, the dissatisfaction of those who practiced the old religion of Amen-Ra is growing. Hani, a diplomat already under the king’s surveillance because of the disappearance of his firebrand Amen priest brother-in-law, gets drawn into an investigation for the Beloved Royal Wife, who is being blackmailed. Meanwhile, the new vassal king of A’amu, lodged at Hani’s house until the king grants him an audience, is showing himself to be none too loyal. Hani must walk the line between his oath to the king and his conscience.
Hani must secretly obtain a Hittite bridegroom for Queen Meryet-amen, but Ay and the faction behind Prince Tut-ankh-aten are opposed--to the point of violence. Does the death of an artisan have anything to do with Ay’s determination to see his grandson on the throne? Then, another death brings Egypt to the brink of war. Hani’s diplomatic skills will be pushed to the limit.
Scepter of Flint
During the Great Jubilee of the Aten, a mysterious series of tomb robberies takes place, and witnesses begin to die. With plague ravaging the palace, where Hani’s daughter is a physician, and Egypt’s ally, Naharin, collapsing into the hands of a usurper, Hani must make sense of what is happening. And who in high places is his real enemy.
The North Wind Descends
Hani doesn’t know what to make of it when the king starts honoring him, but he must still find the man who killed a foreign ambassador right under the roof of the Egyptian commissioner in Kumidi—a man whose past intersects bizarrely with Hani’s. And then, the queen of the new coregent has a special task for him which may involve dragging Hani’s nineteen-year-old daughter into court politics. He must find a way to see justice done and yet protect his family… and his conscience.
Empire at Twilight Series
The Lightning Horse
When a young Hittite charioteer discovers that the chariot accident that killed his father and maimed his grandfather was sabotage aimed at the king, he sets out to find the killer. Facing the loss of everyone he holds dear, he learns that good and evil are often not what they seem, and he must struggle to adjust to a new identity.
When Ehli-nikkalu, the daughter of his Hittite overlord, marries the vassal king of Ugarit but fails to produce an heir, she finds herself abused and isolated, especially by her mother-in-law. Longing for her homeland and beloved family, Ehli-nikkal becomes involved with a mad pretender who commands hordes of starving dispossessed, a conscienceless extortioner, and a royal concubine with a shady past. Only the bravery and friendship of a young girl, an indebted secretary, and a generous poet get her home safely—after teaching her a thing or two about love.
The Singer and Her Song
Uqnitum is a singer from a famous musical lineage in the kingdom of Mitanni. When the fall of their city to the Assyrians costs her the life of her husband and her youngest child, she and her pregnant, widowed daughter flee to the court of Ugarit. Haunted by guilt over her part in her husband’s death, Uqnitum’s increasingly unhinged personality becomes dangerous to the peace of her remaining family. Only by succumbing to her weakness does she learn the real nature of strength.
The Queen’s Dog
In the Bronze Age Syrian kingdom of Ugarit, a eunuch slave mistakenly believes his mistress the queen loves him, so when asked to spy on her under threat of punishment, he finds a way to avoid it. When she shows she cares nothing for him, he justifies reporting her disloyal activities but can’t escape agonies of conscience that take him into some dark places from his past. Can he redeem his cowardice with a single act of heroism?
Sun At Twilight
In the twilight years of the Hittite Empire (1230s BC), Tudhaliya IV comes to the throne as a usurper's younger son, determined to rule according to the traditional values of justice and clemency, despite the harder advice of his ambitious mother and his questionably loyal older brothers. When his cousin Kurunta, with whom he was raised as someone dearer than a brother, decides his own claim to the throne is stronger than Tudhaliya's, the latter must decide whether to apply the brutal pragmatism of his advisors or risk appearing weak, and how to manage to leave his own son an empire that is finally free from civil war. The cost will be the sacrifice of his deepest friendship.
Hani's Daughter Mysteries
When two young women in ancient Egypt open a medical dispensary, they don’t expect their first patient to be a dying florist of Amen whose last words are totally mysterious. It’s Neferet and Bener-ib’s nature to want to appease the ba of the murder victim by finding his killer, and their teenaged apprentice is a born detective. But between the skepticism of their own families and the malice of a rival healer, they find out the simple desire to do the right thing gets them into more trouble than they could have imagined!
When a corpse washes up on the riverbank at Lord Hani’s country house, his daughter Neferet and her fellow physician Bener-ib and apprentice Mut-tuy head for the local village to try to identify it. But they find themselves entangled in a web of murder and lies in the heart of a family of weavers. Can the perseverance of three determined women and the bonds of parental love win out, or will Neferet herself become the next victim?
When Neferet’s uncle Pipi gets sucked into a get-rich-quick scheme at a chariot workshop that is too good to be true, she’s not surprised when investors start turning up dead. Can she and Bener-ib and their band of teen-aged detectives find out what’s really at stake and who is behind it before she herself becomes the next victim?