Product Description

This is the fifteenth adventure for Amelia, Emerson and the whole Peabody-Emerson clan! At last the Great War is over. Amelia, her distinguished Egyptologist husband Emerson and their extended family are preparing for another season of excavation in Egypt. To everyone's great joy their son Ramses and his wife Nefret have become parents. Amelia, enjoying her role of fond (yet firm) grandmother, hopes that for once, this will be a quiet year with Ramses no longer undertaking perilous missions for British intelligence and no old enemies on their trail. Amelia is sadly mistaken. Past dangers cast shadows across the seemingly peaceful present, and a new adversary - unlike any Amelia has ever encountered - will chart a course that puts her beloved family directly in the path of destruction.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #30921 in Books
• Published on: 2007-06-07
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 466 pages

Review
"* 'I can't wait for the next Peabody story... I really do think [Elizabeth Peters'] books are great entertainment.' Angela Ripon * 'A writer so popular that the public library has to keep her books under lock and key.' Washington Post Book World * 'Think Miss Marple with early feminist gloss crossed with Indiana Jones... accomplished entertainment.' Guardian"

About the Author
Elizabeth Peters is a prolific and successful novelist with over fifty novels to her credit. She is internationally renowned for her mystery stories, especially those featuring indomitable heroine Amelia Peabody. She lives in a historic farmhouse in Frederick, Maryland, with six cats and two dogs.

Customer Reviews

Amelia Peabody is back on form in this book
Children of the Storm brings a welcome return to form of Amelia, her husband, Emerson, their son, Ramses and his wife, Nefret along with all their ever expanding family in tow - and in this case, that is virtually every one - ligitimate, illigitimate and extended are involved in the storm that plagues another of their archeological expeditions. The Great War is over, but the effects of the conflict still linger as the Emerson family prepare for another season in Luxor. Before long, some valuable artifacts are stolen form the home of one of the Emersons' closest friends which causes concern and suspicion. Then Ramses has a strange encounter with a lady disguised as the goddess, Hathor. Other members of the family are threatened and suffer misfortune. Before long, a not so fresh corpse is found and is somehow linked to the attacks on the family and Amelia must use all her skills to get to the bottom of the mystery before another little incident finishes off one of them.

For those not in the know, this is the 15th book in the series that was first set in the late Victorian era about the adventures of a lady Eygptologist, Amelia Peabody and her family and over the subsequent books progressed to the beginning of the 20th Century. It was originally written from the acerbic point of view of Amelia, but later books introduced another narrator which gives another perspective to the proceedings of the adventure. This is not a book for new readers to the series as much of the it follows on from the previous book, The Golden One. It would be advisable to read Crocodile on the Sandbank first, and work your way through the series, or failing that, read from Seeing A Large Cat onwards.

Fans of the series will enjoy the the inclusion of many of the cast from previous books as well as the introducion of some very new members to the clan who will bring a smile (or even laughter) to the reader. There are new revelations about the Emerson clan and some long asked questions are answered. As usual, the book is witty, full of fiendishly complicated plots, the odd red herrings, lots of history and background to the difficult political situation in Egypt in the early part of the 20th Century and a suprising twist to the tale and of course several more shirts are ruined!

Just Good Fun
Amelia Peabody's family has grown up and grown in number and all of them seem to be in this novel !! Perhaps there are a few too many chacters but for those of us who know and love Elizabeth Peters' creations this is a very satisfying novel. It contains possible hallucinations, young love, precocious children, a last minute dash down the Nile to save someone in distress, criminals who are masters of disguise and Amelia's meddling and organising spirit to the full. Immensely satisfying, a good read, a plot which is not that obvious and potential for sequels which may tie up some of the loose ends. For once this is a series of novels which has not degenerated with each new title but where the writing becomes stonger.

Enjoy .....

Multiple Motives Mystify Amelia
Before commenting on this novel, let me observe that it would be an unhappy error to begin the 15 book Amelia Peabody series with Children of the Storm. You would have a very hard time keeping track of all the characters and the mystery's solution would be totally invisible to you before the solution is revealed. You would probably rate this a one or two star book.

My rating assumes that you have read at least the last 8 novels in the series.

The setting and cast of characters are a major shift from the books in the series set during World War I. With the War to End All Wars having ended, all of the Emerson clan (and I do mean ALL) come together in Children of the Storm. Ramses and Nefret are now parents of active two-year-old twins, so the family has also expanded into a third generation. Those with faulty memories will appreciate the Editor's Note which describes who all these people are and how they are related.

The book opens in Luxor with Cyrus Vandergelt concerned about how much of his large archeological find involving four princesses will have to be presented to the Cairo Museum. The Emersons are working on a messy site with seemingly limited potential which looters and poorly disciplined archeologists have ravaged in the past. M. Lacau from the Department of Antiquities arrives to inspect the Vandergelt artifacts and mummies. Soon he will choose what will remain in Egypt. Consternation reigns when "reformed" antiquities thief, Signor Martinelli, disappears as do several of the best pieces of ancient jewelry. The Emersons vow to recover the jewelry before M. Lacau discovers it is missing. Their search takes them to Cairo where Ramses responds to a note offering a warning only to find himself abducted, drugged and manipulated by a beautiful young woman dressed as the Veiled Goddess Hathor. As the mystery develops, there are mysterious deaths, attacks on individuals, sabotage of conveyances and a reappearance of Hathor in Luxor! Amelia and the rest of the clan are more than usually puzzled. They cannot see a pattern in what purpose could lie behind the baffling activities. When the pattern becomes clear, there's deadly danger to overcome and an exciting finish!

Children of the Storm is exceptional from two perspectives. First, the title captures a myriad of meanings in the context of the story that will enrich your appreciation of the story. Nicely done! Second, I cannot think of a novel that weaves so many characters and story lines together with accuracy and meaning. It must be like carrying the world on your shoulders to plot and develop this complex a story. And it works.

Some things are lost in the process. The story often feels over peopled. This requires a lot of development to fit everyone together in a meaningful way. This development sometimes feels bulky. In addition, a third of the book's length is caught up with details of day-to-day life like looking after for the children, arranging work schedules to appease Emerson, organizing Nefret's clinic in Luxor, and dealing with Emerson's latest toy. The mystery itself would have required about 250 pages, and would have been a page turner. The mystery feels diluted amidst all of this detail of daily life.

The Emersons focus on domesticity also limits the amount of detecting they do compared to earlier novels. So you get less of Emerson's investigative derring-do in Cairo, fewer forays by Amelia on her own, and limited searching by Ramses and David. Sethos plays his mildest role yet even though he is involved throughout the book.

As a result, much of the material in the book feels more like The Forsythe Saga than an early Amelia Peabody thriller. In fact, the book almost felt like a whole new genre . . . the three-generation extended family as detective.

A bright light to look out for in future novels is that the twins seem destined to be very interesting characters which may ignite all of this clan expansion into something more exciting.

After you finish this book, think about how you balance your family, your friends, your work, and your personal interests. How could you make them more positively integrated?