Scarab: Descendant (The Amarnan Kings, #6) A Novel of Ancient Egypt by Max Overton

Scarab: Descendant (The Amarnan Kings, #6) A Novel of Ancient Egypt Reviews

• 
  Dyana

  This book is the conclusion of the story of Princess Beketaten, A.K.A. Scarab and takes place 3,000 years after the reigns of the last pharaohs of the 18th dynasty in ancient Egypt. I have truly enjoyed this series and will miss looking forward to a next installment. Except for the prologue, this book takes place in present day and has a different feel to it - think Indiana Jones or "Raiders of the Lost Ark". Rather than historical fiction, it has an adventure theme and involves a race to find the hidden tomb of Smenkhkare and his sister Scarab. One group wants to plunder its' riches, and another wants to protect and preserve it from greedy people.
  
  While previous prologues and epilogues take place in the present around the 1960's and the rest of the book in ancient Egypt, this book #6 is just the opposite. The prologue does take place in ancient Egypt and has Khu, son of Pa-it, taking the body of King Neferkheperu Scarab, his beloved wife, from the fields of Kadesh to Kemet. His mission is to bury her as befits her station as King of Kemet and sister, daughter, and mother of kings. After his mission is accomplished, he lives below the cliff face for 20 years protecting the tomb. After he dies, he continues protecting her beyond the grave. The epilogue is also from beyond the grave and has a twist for a surprise ending.
  
  The rest of the book focuses on Dr. Danielle Hanser of a British archaeological expedition to the Orontes Valley in Syria where the team stumbled upon a series of chambers in a cave filled with hieroglyphs that tells the story of an Egyptian princess (books 1-5). Dani is the one who translates the story. How does Dani translate these passages when Egyptology is not her specialty? "It's almost impossible for someone to get true meaning from symbols without years of study - it is like she was born with an understanding of hieroglyphs"! Dr. Ahmed Bashir of the Syrian Dept. of National History becomes very interested when translations reveal there is an undiscovered royal tomb in Egypt containing the bodies of Smenkhkare and possibly that of Princess Beketaten. Bashir wants to find the tomb and plunder it by selling the priceless artifacts on the black market. He therefore takes away all the possessions of the archaeological team including the scarab stone and, with only the clothes on their backs, he puts them on a plane for England. His treachery also has him charging them with scientific improprieties so they can't reenter Syria.
  
  Dani is suspended for six months from her job at Midland Univ. because of the allegations. She vows to travel to Egypt, find the tomb, protect it and protect the body of Scarab. Her #1 priority is to find the carved golden scarab, which hides itself as an ordinary sandstone rock to everyone but believers. Bashir took it from her in Syria. He had no clue what it was - he only knew it was valuable to her. It is a talisman imbued with the great power of the Nine Gods of Iunu; and since Dani seems to be a descendant of Scarab, she needs it to find the hidden tomb before Bashir does. Her visa request to enter Egypt is refused so she, Marc Andrews, and Daffyd Rhy-Williams from her team decide to go in illegally through Libya. Bashir also travels to Egypt and meets up with Colonel Sarraj, a ruthless military man, whom he enlists to help him find the tomb. Sarraj has his own agenda - he wants to form a coup, gain power, and become president of Egypt.
  
  The race is on to find the tomb. First the team hires a driver named Muammar al-Hadi to drive their jeep from Benghazi to Al Jawf. In the meantime, a free-lance journalist in England, Nick Evans, hears about Dani's story and decides to go to Egypt to find her and her great story. All kinds of adventures occur in the desert including asking a Sheik for help, Bedouin warriors kidnapping the infidels for ransom, the infidels escaping, survival in the desert, Bashir and Sarraj hot on their trail, the Bedouins hot on the team's trail, Nick Evans going undercover to spy on Bashir, museum officials getting involved when they find a cliff shaft which could possibly be a tomb, impossibly finding a notch in a cliff where the sun shines through and green vegetation pointing to a tomb, Dani without her notes and translations against Bashir who has them all, and much more. Does she find her precious scarab, and who gets to the tomb first? Is Princess Beketaten entombed there?
  
  If you like ancient Egyptian historical fiction, you will like this series. It is best to read it in order to preserve the flow of the whole. This was an epic journey and one well worth reading. Don't forget that twist at the end.
• 
  Paul Burnette

  Golden Scarab bewitches us. Scarab, previously known as a no-name child of King Nebmaetre of Egypt's Middle Kingdom, then named Beketaten, who in previous books of Overton's series came of age (Bk 1), fought against her usurping Uncle Ay on the side of her brother Shmenkhkare (Bk 2), continues the battle alongside her older brother Shmenkhkare against the cruel and ambitious Ay and her younger brother Tuthankamen (Bk 3), finally falls under the power of King Ay's adopted son Nakhtmin, then turns the tables on her worst enemies, clearing the way for Horemheb to come to power and her ex-lover Paramessu to become Horemheb's successor and eventually her son Set to sit on the throne of Egypt (Bk 4). In The Amarnan Kinds Book 5: Scarab - Horemheb, Overton combines his story with the Biblical story of the Hebrews' escape from Egypt, with former King Ahkenaten resurfacing as Yahmose (Moses) aided in the Hebrews/Khabirus' exodus from slavery in Egypt by Jesua, a warrior follower of Scarab. This tale has been 'read' to us from the beginning by a British female archaeologist Dani, who has found Scarab's tomb, apparently, in modern-day Syria, on the walls of which the aging Scarab had recorded her life story. It emerges at the end of Book 5 that Scarab is not buried in the tomb in Syria, as we had thought all along, but that her husband Khu had taken her body to her brother Shmenkhkare's hidden tomb in Egypt and secretly buried her there. So the stage is set for Book 6, where archaeologist Dani, apparently a descendant of Scarab's, is going to wield the golden scarab she found in the Syrian excavation, to assist her as she deals with unearthing her ancestor's body and story and fending off the efforts of a Saudi Arabian official who threatens the lives of the British archaeologists as well as the integrity of the history of Scarab. If this sounds a bit far-fetched, it is to the credit of the storyteller Max Overton that it all goes down smoothly, and delightfully, as Scarab's marvelous resilience and resourceful character grow slowly from the little girl playing with a dung beetle in Book 1 into the queen wielding the power of the gods of Egypt in Book 5. She restores Ma'at, the balance of justice and peace, to her country, just as any good fictional heroine should. We wait on Book 6 of The Amarnan Kings: Scarab - Descendant to see if Dani can do as well as her ancestor against the greed and ambition of present-day despots!
• 
  Holly

  This entire series was an amazing way of looking at the 18th Dynasty as opposed to what we know from the history books. Why couldn't Smenkhare and Tut have died at the same time, why couldn't Moses have been a previous king who disappeared for years but continued in is "odd" belief that there was only one God? So many times throughout the first five books, and caught myself smiling at the in-depth research and story telling of these "what ifs." I would absolutely recommend this series to anyone who loves ancient Egyptian culture or anyone who loves court intrigue and epic story telling!
  
  The last book was a very different feel, but equally as good. A perfect way to wrap up the present-day story, and also a few good finishing touches on Scarab's story.
  
  This entire series goes down on my favorites of all time list, and I wish more people knew about it!
• 
  Stephanie

  The series ended back on a better note. This book read like a movie and though at times it felt like it was unbelievable, it was a fun read. I still liked the first three books the best.