Length of Novel:

104,025 words

Keywords and Market Focus:

Fiction, Egypt, Ancient Egypt, Cold War, Russia, Tomb, Suspense, Mummy, Archeology, Mystery, Germany, France, Britain, Moscow, Stalin, NKVD, SMERSh, MGB, MVD, Beria, Abakumov, Orthodox Church; will fascinate anyone interested in mystery and suspense—will appeal particularly to those who enjoy archeological historical mystery and suspense novels.

Genre:

Fiction Suspense

Synopsis: 

Whoosh… flash… boom, an explosion nearly steals the life of Lumière Bolang. It robs her of her memory, voice, and mobility. She becomes a victim, like so many other children of the violence of the Second World War.

Lumière Bolang is the daughter of the goddess of light and her warrior. Her soul was tainted through the actions and teaching of her aunt, the goddess of darkness—or so Lumière believes. She believes this so strongly, that after she, her mother and father conquered the goddess of darkness, Lumière ran away from them—forever. Her mother and father thought she was dead. Lumière took with her, the goddess of darkness’ “changed” tablet and her servant, Oba.
 

When Lumière and Oba attempt to escape Berlin at the end of World War II, she is caught in a firefight and almost killed. Lumière is rescued by a Jewish Soviet reporter and nursed back to life. She learns to speak and read Russian, and he takes her to Moscow.
 

Lumière injuries are extensive—they affect her legs, her speech, and her mind. Lumière can’t remember anything before the explosion, but when she meets Oba again, horrible dreams haunt her. The dreams are so terrible, the local commissar wants to send Lumière to a people’s asylum—a mental institution. Instead, her Jewish friend takes her to the newly opened Moscow convent. There, he believes, Lumière can get the help and protection she needs.
 

At the convent, Lumière’s incredible language ability becomes evident. The Patriarch of the Orthodox Church begins to use her as a translator to tempt the Soviet intelligence system. The Patriarch wants a spy in the NKVD, the precursor of the KGB, for the Orthodox Church—Lumière could be that spy.
 

Beria and Abakumov the chiefs of the NKVD and the MGB take the bait, and Beria installs Lumière as the head of Embassy Relations. Her skills are also too tempting for Stalin who accepts her as his translator, Stalin’s Little Bird. Stalin makes Lumière the head of the Department for International Understanding and puts her in charge of all advanced language study in the Soviet Union.
 

Meanwhile, Lumière is learning more about her own past. She determines that she needs to study Chinese to help her flush out the goddess of darkness who is now influencing the communists in China. That is when Lumière meets Aleksandr, an associate professor of Oriental languages in Moscow University. Aleksandr falls in love with Lumière—a love she is certain she cannot return.
 

In 1953 Stalin dies, Beria and Abakumov are imprisoned. Lumière’s life hangs in the balance. All thoughts of her mission to China disappear. She must escape to the West before the Soviet state led now by Khrushchev, purges her directorate and her life.

Author's reviewer’s quotes: 

Emotionally, physically, and spiritually wrung out, Lumière Bolang is a child you want to hold and love. She overcomes every hurdle to find love and peace when there is no love and peace to be found.

Wow! Into the bowels of the post war Soviet Union. Literally, a meeting with some of the most evil men in history—the tension in The Shadow of Darkness will keep you at the edge of your seat.

A dream-world you hope will end but never stops—the Soviet state gives everything and takes everything from Lumière Bolang. An amazing internal spy novel where the suspense never ends.
 

Short descriptive teasers: