The Visitors - Softcover

Sally Beauman

Softcover

ISBN 10: 075155166X ISBN 13: 9780751551662

Publisher: Abacus, 2015

Synopsis

Under the tablecloth, Frances's hand reached for mine and clasped it. I knew what it meant, that clasp and the mischievous grateful glance that accompanied it: it meant I was thanked, that there were secrets here. I could accept that. I too had secrets - who doesn't?

Sent abroad to Egypt in 1922 to recover from the typhoid that killed her mother, eleven-year-old Lucy is caught up in the intrigue and excitement that surrounds the obsessive hunt for Tutankhamun's tomb. As she struggles to comprehend an adult world in which those closest to her are often cold and unpredictable, Lucy longs for a friend she can love. When she meets Frances, the daughter of an American archaeologist, her life is transformed. As the two girls spy on the grown-ups and try to understand the truth behind their evasions, a lifelong bond is formed.

Haunted by the ghosts of her past, the mistakes she made and the secrets she kept, Lucy disinters her past, trying to make sense of what happened all those years ago in Cairo and the Valley of the Kings. And for the first time in her life, she comes to terms with what happened after Egypt, when Frances needed Lucy most.

About this title

Review:

[A] beautifully written novel, a tale of intertwined lives that is at once powerful and haunting. Beauman maintains the tension surrounding the tomb's discovery (The Times)

The settings are glamorous and mysterious, the woman who dies in strange, unexplained circumstances is morally dubious and very beautiful, and there are real-life characters, such as Howard Carter and Lord Carnarvon, searching for Tutankhamun's tomb, to add extra spice (Independent on Sunday)

There is much to delight in this book....Nearly a century after King Tut's discovery, Beauman manages to make both the lives of her fictional characters and those at the historical center of Tut's unearthing riveting (New York Journal of Books)

Interesting, unusual and informative, it is greatly enjoyable (Literary Review)

Colourful and fast-paced, this chunky but highly readable novel offers plenty of intrigue and an interesting portrait of the adult world, as seen through a child's enquiring eyes. (The Lady)

A book of astounding scholarship on Egyptology and the 1920s.... The novel's...writing and characterizations are golden (Booklist, starred review)

Book Description:

Under the tablecloth, Frances's hand reached for mine and clasped it. I knew what it meant, that clasp and the mischievous grateful glance that accompanied it: it meant I was thanked, that there were secrets here. I could accept that. I too had secrets - who doesn't?

About this edition

• Publisher: Abacus
• Publication date: 2015
• ISBN 10: 075155166X
• ISBN 13: 9780751551662
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 688