Book Review: The Secret of the Sphinx by Samuel Bavli

Publish Date: September 19, 2016
Published by Tambora Books
134 Pages [Kindle edition]

Synopsis:
The place is ancient Egypt. The year is 2558 BCE. Two of the king’s three sons have died in an apparent accident. Neb, who is the king’s vizier and a great magician, is the only one who realizes that their deaths were not accidental, and he tries to prevent the death of the king’s third son. The murderer, an evil sorcerer who fears Neb’s powers, has Neb abducted and casts a magic spell over him, imprisoning Neb’s soul in a great stone sphinx.

Four and a half thousand years pass, and Neb’s sphinx is on display in a museum. A teenage boy named Jon is visiting the museum on a class trip, and Neb immediately senses that this boy could be the key to his freedom. The sphinx speaks to Jon and tells him to return that night; but when Jon returns, the spirits of long-dead kings and demons try to prevent him from reaching the sphinx. After narrowly escaping the spirits, Jon finally reaches Neb. Intrigued by Neb’s story and by the prospect of adventure, Jon climbs onto the sphinx’s back, and flies back in time with Neb to search for the secret that will release Neb’s soul from its stony prison.

My Thoughts:

I was gifted an ebook via NetGalley.
The Secret of the Sphinx follows 14 year old Jonathan Travis who has stumbled upon an interesting sphinx statue in a museum. With a little magic, he is transported 4000 years into the past in ancient Egypt to try and uncover a plot to kill the three heirs to the king and remove the king from his position with the help of the king's right hand man, Neb.

As a child, I was obsessed with ancient Egypt and loved anything to do with it. I was hoping to feel the spark of nostalgia, but sadly The Secret fell short for me. It was a very short novel that I expected to read in a little over 2 hours and it took me 2 days. It lacked a driving force in the plot and at the same time didn't flesh out many of the characters or situations. It was told in third person and would skip to various perspectives, sometimes in the middle of a chapter. But I don't really think much was gained from the jumping around. I think it would have been fine to do just Neb and Jon's perspectives. I didn't really connect with the characters or plot as much as I had hoped.

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