Morning Star
1910
The year is unrecorded, but Egypt's golden throne trembles. Prince Abi, governor of Memphis and lord of the Delta, has moored his ship of state beneath Thebes' walls, not to pay homage to the Pharaoh, but to claim what he believes is rightfully his. Yet Abi carries a dangerous secret: his blood mixes Egyptian royalty with the conquered Hyksos line, and the priests have their own candidate for the throne. She is Neter-Tua, the Morning Star, a princess whose very name is prophecy, born under omens that promise either salvation or ruin for the kingdom. As astrologer Kaku reads the heavens and princes scheme in shadowed halls, love and ambition collide with the weight of ancient gods who have not yet finished speaking. Haggard crafts his Egypt as a world where the divine bleeds into the mortal, a realm of golden barges and ritual murders, where a single woman's birth can threaten a dynasty and a prince's kiss can reshape history. The novel moves with the momentum of forbidden romance and the slow burn of political conspiracy, each chapter tightening the noose around characters we cannot help but root for. For readers who ache for adventure that breathes the dust of tombs and smells of lotus and blood, Morning Star delivers the romance of empire in its most primal form.
