Summary
Rika Teferi, a former soldier in Eritrea's war for independence, is working on her doctorate in the Cairo Museum when an accidental tea spill uncovers hidden writing on a papyrus written by Queen Tiye to her youngest son, Tutankhamun. Horrified at the spill but aching to read the entire secret text, Rika agrees to let a visiting remote-sensing specialist, David Chamberlain, smuggle the priceless papyrus out of the museum and scan it with instruments on his aircraft.
The results show Tiye to have been the power behind the thrones of her husband and sons. They also reveal that she was buried, not in Egypt, but in modern-day Sudan. Rika and David devise a risky plan to find Tiye's tomb. But a major in the Secret Police misconstrues their covert activities as part of a fundamentalist plot to overthrow the Egyptian government and vows to kill them.
Reared in revolution, Rika feels a spiritual bond with Queen Tiye, a Nubian commoner who married Pharaoh and revolutionized Egyptian society by introducing a monotheistic religion that freed Egypt from the tyranny of the Amun priests. Rika's quest to find Tiye's tomb parallels chapters reliving the queen's last journey up the Nile, three thousand years before, to achieve immortality by being buried alive in a coffin of oils. Throughout the story, Rika is torn between her passion for Tiye and her love of country. If she finds the queen's tomb, should she take from it only knowledge, or should she pilfer the valuable artifacts and sell them to buy arms that could tip the balance in Eritrea's continuing battle against genocide? In her growing love of David, she is also torn by the fear that he could never live in her culture, nor she in his. These quandaries plague her until the shocking end.
Reviews
In the Amazon Breakthrough Novel contest, an excerpt of Papyrus garnered 110 customer reviews, with an average rating of five stars. Here are some of them.
Publishers Weekly “A compelling heroine, evocative setting and swashbuckling archeology highlight this entertaining and unusually thoughtful adventure.”
“Reminiscent of "DaVinci Code," though much better written.”
“The kind of book I would devour in a few days but would end up thinking about long after.”
“In a league with Michael Crichton and Dan Brown.”
“Imagine Indiana Jones as black and female. Yummy! This story's got legs. “Papyrus” has all the makings of a successful novel with high cinematographic quality. John Oehler hooks the reader immediately and keeps the adrenaline pumping.”
“Rika rocks! I can't remember when I have been as excited by an opening scene. Will move straight to the top of the international thriller class!”
“Riveted by Queen Tiye's decision … spellbound by Rika's story! Beautiful writing. Could something like this have actually happened? I think maybe, “Yes!” Desperate for MORE STORY!!”
“Two women separated by three thousand years are suddenly connected by an accidental spill of tea on an ancient papyrus.”
“Wow! Papyrus should begin with a warning: The reader will become completely hooked. The emotions, sounds, and descriptions made me feel as if I were there--feeling Rika's guilt, need for revenge, anger; then later her frustration at possibly returning to Eritrea as a failure. Mr. Oehler's writing is tight and strong, and the authenticity of the details engaging. This is the type of book I seek out, but rarely find anymore. It has action, history, and intrigue. … love to see it in the theater.”
“Action and Intrigue at Its Best. The writing here is so crisp, so fast-paced, you can't help but keep reading. This is an author with a real command of the language. I had the sense, once I was a few lines into the first, war-torn scene, that not only did the writing reflect the intensity of the action, it seemed to generate an action all its own. The main character is unearthing secrets from ancient Egypt, another is involved with remote sensing, and all juxtaposed against a backdrop of African politics, war, treachery.”
Excerpt
To read the prologue and first two chapters,
please click your preferred file format.
Summary
In 1559, forty-nine Spaniards exploring a tributary of the Orinoco River reached a sheer-sided, cloud-capped mountain called Tepui Zupay. When they tried to climb it, all but six of them were slaughtered by Amazons. Or so claimed Friar Sylvestre, the expedition’s chronicler. But Sylvestre made many bizarre claims: rivers of blood, plants that lead to gold.
Jerry Pace, a burn-scarred botanist struggling for tenure at UCLA, thinks the friar was high on mushrooms. Jerry’s best friend, the historian who has just acquired Sylvestre’s journal, disagrees. He plans to retrace the expedition’s footsteps, and wants Jerry to come with him. Jerry refuses, until he spots a stain between the journal’s pages — a stain left by a plant that died out with the dinosaurs. He has to find that plant. And when the patron who funded the journal’s purchase sends a seductive blond to accompany them, Jerry’s interest heats up even higher.
But the Venezuelan wilderness does not forgive intruders. Their canoe capsizes, they lose their gear, a deranged Dutchman vows to slit their throats. And their trip has just begun. Battered and broken, they reach a remote Catholic orphanage, where the old prioress warns of death awaiting any who would venture farther. But an exotic Indian girl leads them on, through piranha-infested rivers and jungles teaming with poisonous plants, to Tepui Zupay — the forbidden mountain no outsider has set eyes on since the Spaniards met their doom.
Reviews
“Tepui is cracking good story, and while it is somewhat reminiscent of Jurassic Park it is refreshingly original. The writing is crisp, the characters are compelling, the plot engaging, and the historic and scientific details are fascinating, without being overbearing. The story drew me in from the very first paragraph. It is a book I could recommend to my published friends, and my writing students.”
— Robert Vaughan, bestselling author, Pulitzer Prize nominee, and 1998 inductee into the Writers Hall of Fame
“For sheer brilliance of ideas, John Oehler stands shoulder-to-shoulder with Dan Brown. Oehler’s writing is powerful and meticulous, his characters compassionate, enticing, and sexy. His supporting characters surprise the reader time and again. Look no further than Tepui for a riveting page-turner.”
— Chris Rogers, bestselling author of Bitch Factor, Chill Factor, and Rage Factor
“Tepui is an action-packed, intelligent, and cutting edge story. I loved it.”
— Robyn Conley-Weaver, bestselling author of What Really Matters To Me: A Guided Journal
Excerpt
To read the prologue and first two chapters,
please click your preferred file format.
Summary
Eric Foster, the best student at the world’s top perfume school, creates a perfume he calls Balquees, a formulation based on the fragrance the Queen of Sheba wore to seduce King Solomon. Upon testing it surreptitiously at a gathering of glitterati in the Pantheon in Paris, he discovers that it works even better than he ever imagined. Balquees is a true aphrodisiac, the holy grail of perfumery. Eric sees stardom on his horizon, all his dreams realized, until he is kicked out of the school and blackballed for a theft he did not commit.
In New York eleven months later, Eric slogs through the day at a job he hates, Quality Assurance Officer for a mid-rank manufacturer of scents that make fabric softener smell “soft” and new cars smell “new.” His only satisfaction comes from a sideline he has created as a consulting forensic perfumer for the NYPD. But his satisfaction turns into a nightmare when he is called to a murder scene where it appears that a perfume called SF drove the woman to strangle her boyfriend. SF, he instantly recognizes, is Balquees. And just as quickly, he becomes the prime suspect, for it turns out that SF is the only common link in a whole string of passion-driven murders and assaults.
While the cops try to prove he is the maker and marketer of SF, Eric struggles desperately to find the true culprit, a struggle that takes him to Yemen and France and makes him doubt every friend he ever had.
Excerpt
To read the prologue and first two chapters,
please click your preferred file format.
