October 1 : premise (15 mins)

The Premise
An ancient Egyptian woman is punished for a crime she didn't commit until her husband-to-be whisks her of to a foriegn land.

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The novel is about a young Egyptian woman, in the reign of Hepshetsut. Her father is a painter of funerary objects, who has been engaged to work on the tomb of the Pharaoh’s chief scribe. Lillium helps her father and at first things go well, but he gets sick and because he cannot work becomes involved with tomb robbing. One of the group is caught, and her father flees into the night, leaving her to face the wrath of the priests alone. She is interviewed and then taken by barge to the temple at Amun Re.
One of the men on the barge is kind to her. At the temple she is accused of helping her father and forced to serve at the temple for 5 years as a punishment.
She is harried and worked hard, but finds the temple and it surroundings exquisite.
The priestesses try to pressure her into joining them but she holds out. One of the older priests attacks her but she manages to escape. Alone in the temple she prays for help. Later she meets the man on the barge again and over the next two years they develop a relationship. After 3 years of servitude he comes to the temple and offers 20 gold coins in exchange for the 2 years she has left. They take his money but say it will only pay for one year. He has no more money, so he leaves. She is distraught, but after a month he returns in the middle of the night and whisks her off by boat to Nubia, where they live happily ever after.