The Lighthouse of Alexandria
Alexandria, 48 BCE. As smoke darkens the royal harbor and siege tension coils through the city, Thais—a Greek-Egyptian papyrus restorer—fights to save damaged scroll inventories no one else will claim. Nikanor, an engineer whose family keeps the Pharos mirrors true, pulls her from a warehouse fire… and into a quieter disaster: scientific works are vanishing before the lines close. Forced into secrecy, they bargain over water, argue loyalty, and follow ink-stained clues from library stacks to the lighthouse stair, while Cleopatra’s brilliant court watches for disorder and a polished enemy smiles like a patron. Desire kindles in torchlight and salt wind—slow, forbidden, impossible to surrender. But when betrayal threatens both the catalog of vulnerable knowledge and the beam that steadies the harbor, Thais and Nikanor must choose what their skills serve: rulers who rewrite truth, or each other and the ordinary light that remains after empires pass. A standalone historical romance of wit, danger, scholarship, and high-heat devotion beneath Cleopatra’s last bright harbor. Free sample available.