I’ve decided to experiment with participating in some weekly excerpt fun with other authors as part of Six Sentence Sunday. I hope my readers will enjoy it. This snippet begins the story of Cleopatra Selene whose famous mother is believed to have killed herself with the bite of an asp.
Something coiled dangerously within the basket I carried, but I’d been told not to open the lid nor to ask what lurked beneath its woven reeds. The basket smelled of comforting cedar and lush figs, but it was embroidered with emblems of Anubis—the jackal-headed Guide of the Dead.
Anubis was a kind god, so I should have taken solace, but seeing him only magnified my sense of dread. Since we’d lost the war, Alexandria was quiet and filled with ill omens.
I had once been the safest child in Egypt, but the world held terrors everywhere for me now. The twisting motion in the basket convinced me that I held treachery in my arms.
Lily of the Nile: A Novel of Cleopatra’s Daughter (Berkley Books, January 2011) is available now. If you’d like to read a free historical fiction story about the life of her ancestress, Queen Arsinoe II of Egypt, please join my newsletter and download the free YA anthology, Eternal Spring, here!
Great first person narration, the pace and flow are working together really well. Great job!
Great imagery in your six! Really enjoyed it.
Who’s your favorite Ptolemaic Queen mine’s is Berenice of Cyrene followed by Cleopatra the second.
Cleopatra Selene is the last–and my favorite–Ptolemaic Queen 😉
Very intriguing snippet!
I love the menace implicit here, also the details of the basket – very well done six!
Awesome 6 sentences, Steph!
Beautifully written. The details are great and the way you introduced the backstory about the war is so smooth.
Love the last two sentences. I’m a big buff about ancient Egypt myself too. Interesting six!
Amazing voice, Steph!