She filled me with a sense of my own inadequacy and a deep and poignant longing for although I am a eunuch I was gelded only after I had known the joy of a woman's body.

Neither I nor any one of them could keep our gaze off her. Every man aboard, even the warriors at the rowing-benches, were aware of it. She would grow more beautiful as the years passed, become more poised and regal, but never again would that glow of virgin womanhood radiate from her so overpoweringly. Lostris, the woman's name that they had then chosen to replace her discarded baby-name, meant `Daughter of the Waters'. The Nile had begun its latest flood on the very day that her red woman's moon had flowered for the first time, a coincidence that the priests of Hapi had viewed as highly propitious. The sound harmonised with the singing of the girl in the bows. Our boat sped close in beside the papyrus beds near enough for the creaking of the water buckets of the shadoof, on their long, counter-balanced arms, to carry from the fields across the water. In the mirage the gaunt hills flanking the Nile seemed to tremble to the blows. The sky smoked with heat-haze and the sun beat down upon it all with the strokes of a coppersmith's hammer. The river lay heavily upon the desert, bright as a spill of molten metal from a furnace. Orlando Sentinel Read a sample Listen to a sample Packed with passion, war, intrigue, and revenge.

The Washington Post Vivid and fascinating. there is never a lull in his majestic novel overflowing with passion, rage, treachery, barbarism, prolonged excitement and endless passages of sheer, exquisite colour. Times Literary Supplement High adventure. The Mail on Sunday Grand mythical material. brilliantly detailed descriptions of life on the Nile.

The Observer Big, brave and blockbusting.

Weekend Telegraph Superlatively evocative.Smith`s descriptions hardly falter over 500 pages and has relentless momentum. Booklist An epic of sex, death and intrigue in the Valley of the Kings. It's clear Smith knows his subject: his graphic depiction of lust, bloodletting, politics, and, in Taita's case, honor is firmly grounded in rich details that evoke the period. Reviews The brutality of life in ancient times is everywhere evident in Taita's tale, which involves fatal intrigue at every turn.

The seventh scroll by wilbur smith