Product Description

Guided only by a crumbling map that took the Peaboby-Emerson clan to Tarek's oasis a decade earler, they head for the Sudan. There Rames, now 19 years old, realises he must face up to his feeling for Nefret, while his mother and father confront terrible forces secretly arrayed against them.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #420835 in Books
• Published on: 2005-04-28
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 310 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
In Guardian of the Horizon Amelia Peabody and her husband Emerson, along with their son Ramses and foster daughter Nefret, are summoned back to the Lost Oasis, a hidden stronghold in the western desert whose existence they discovered many years ago (in The Last Camel Died at Noon) and have kept secret from the entire world, including their fellow Egyptologists. According to Merasen, the brother of the ruling monarch, their old friend Prince Tarek is in grave danger and needs their help. However, it's not until they retrace their steps to the Oasis, with its strange mixture of Meroitic and Egyptian cultures, that they learn the real reason for their journey. There's no better company on an archaeological expedition than the Father of Curses and the Lady Doctor, their beautiful Anglo-Egyptian ward and Ramses, the Demon Brother who loves her. If you haven't met the indomitable Amelia yet, this intriguing tale is a great place to start. --Jane Adams, Amazon.com

Good Book Guide, May 1, 2004
'Peters has a gift for keeping the action revving while comedy steals the show.'

Customer Reviews

"Conquer by confusion, I always say"
There comes a time in every series that covers a large number of years when it isn't possible to go further without the main characters discovering the secret of eternal life. Elizabeth Peters' Emersons - Egyptologists, amateur sleuths, and eccentrics par excellence - have reached a point where the era they chronicle is gradually coming to a close. Trust Peter's to find a solution, though, a new cache of papers that document the 'missing years' of the family's madcap career across the tombs and monuments of Egypt.

Set just previous to the blossoming of Ramses' relationship with Nefret, 'Guardian of the Horizon' documents the return to the 'Lost Oasis,' a last hidden survival of ancient Egypt - the Meroitic civilization that the Emerson's first discovered in the Sudan ('The Last Camel Died at Noon'). Readers will recall that the Holy City was where the Emerson's found Nefret, whom they late adopted. Now, ten years later, Merasen, a young noble, appears in England with a message from Tarek, king of the Lost Oasis, and a close friend of the family. There is illness in the Sudan and it threatens the survival of this hidden civilization. Amelia, Emerson, Ramses, and Nefret quickly set out.

For Amelia and Emerson, setting out on a secret journey means that only half of Egypt knows that something is up. As soon as word gets out that they intend to return to the Sudan to 'excavate,' a whole host of shady characters a drawn by the legends of hidden treasure that are rumored to be at the Lost Oasis. Of course, that means trouble, and the journey to the Sudan is marred by violence, intrusion, and countless twists and turns as the Emerson's carry out one elusive maneuver after another.

When they finally arrive at their destination they discover that nothing is as they expected. Instead of a sick king, they find themselves embroiled in a series of adventures that mix politics, religion, and, of course, just a bit of treasure. While a bit slow in developing, the book builds to a classic Peters' finish, with the Emerson's concocting on scheme after another as they try to extricate themselves unharmed and save the kingdom at the same time.

Elizabeth Peters does a fine job of returning the reader to the Emerson's past without recreating what was originally one of the family's most irritating periods. Instead, the writer allows Amelia and company just enough additional maturity to keep the story interesting without the extreme vaudeville that marked her work at that time. While any reader knows that a certain amount of the experience of reading one of the Emerson stories is rolling one's eyes at some of the more hysterical displays, that has been kept to a low roar. I enjoyed the book, and think that any other fan will do so as well.

Another great read from Elizabeth Peters
As usual Elizabeth Peters provides a great mix of humour, pathos, gripping adventure and farce.
This book is perhaps a bit of a slow starter compared to others in the Amelia Peabody series but it more than makes up for it once the action really begins.
For those who are already familiar with the series, we are taking a jump back in time from her last book,"Children of the Storm". The Editor has 'discovered a hitherto unknown journal covering the missing 1907-1908 season.' This puts it directly after the book "The Ape Who Guards the Balance".
Amelia and her archeologist husband Emerson are tricked into making a return journey to the "Holy City" in the Nubian desert (see The Last Camel Died at Noon) accompanied by their son Ramses and their ward Nefret along with their faithful henchmen Selim and Daoud. They go to great lengths to accomplish the journey in secret since they had sworn never to reveal the location of the city. However, they end up with a whole bevy of opponents on their trail, giving us plenty of suspects to choose from when things start to go wrong.
Arriving at the city they find that they have not been forgotten by it's inhabitants. In fact, the honour in which they are held provides the basis for one of the funniest moments of the story.
Ramses really comes into his own in this book. We know from the volumes covering later years that he is a bit of a hero, but here, at the age of 20 he really starts to show his true nature. All good Indian Jones type stuff. Those of you who sigh over his silent devotion to Nefret are in for a bit of a shock.
Emerson, of course, remains "the greatest archeologist of this or any other century" whilst at the same time acting like the hero of some Greek legend. Amelia keeps him in line wielding her trusty parasol and working out the answers to the mysteries surrounding them with her usual incisive thought processes.
All in all it's a romp that keeps you breathless and grinning insanely right to the end.
As usual with any of the books in this series, reading it leaves you with a smile on your face and a great impatience for the next instalment. I can read these books over and over again and never tire of them.

Not quite as good as usual
An excellent read, as always, but hampered slightly in being set some years before the later books in the series; having read the books following it (chronologically, that is) it is mildly irritating to come back to Ramses' agonising over Nefret again.

But still, the plot's as intricate and clever as always, and - as always - it kept me up well into the night.