Digging up a buried past could lead to a premature death, for there is a dangerous secret that is centuries old—as old as the treasure of Nefertiti.
Althea Tomlinson comes back to Egypt as just another tourist, showing the country to a spoiled seventeen-year-old.That's what she tells herself, anyway.The truth is more complex—and dangerous. Ten years ago, something that happened in this desert land brought about her father's ruin and subsequent death—and Althea intends to clear her disgraced parent's name and finally lay a dark past to rest. But there are some mysteries best left buried in the shifting sands, and a devoted daughter's search for answers is stirring up forgotten memories almost too painful to endure that propel her onward among ancient tombs, legendary treasures, miraculous discoveries—and ever-closer to her own threatened doom.
Elizabeth Peters earned her Ph.D. in Egyptology from the University of Chicago’s famed Oriental Institute. During her fifty-year career, she wrote more than seventy novels and three nonfiction books on Egypt. She received numerous writing awards and, in 2012, was given the first Amelia Peabody Award, created in her honor. She died in 2013, leaving a partially completed manuscript of The Painted Queen.
Grace Conlin (1962–1997) was the recording name of Grainne Cassidy, an award-winning actress and acclaimed narrator. She was a member of the Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company in Washington, DC, and won a Helen Hayes Award in 1988 for her role in Woolly Mammoth’s production of Savage in Limbo.