Death will slay with his wings whoever disturbs the peace of the pharaoh.

Cassandra Bain has built her life on cold ambition and harder edges. A razor-sharp Melbourne fashion designer, she has long since buried the woman she once was ? the one who wanted children, a husband, a heart. Four miscarriages and a hollow marriage will do that to a person.

Then her lover, the dangerously magnetic Leigh Kershaw, presses a lapis lazuli scarab into her palm. Beautiful. Ancient. Cursed. The Egyptians used scarabs in place of the mummified heart ? and Cassandra can't help but notice the significance of such a gift.

When a professor of Egyptology warns her of the Curse of the Pharaohs, Cassandra dismisses it as theatre. But then the headlines start. An Egyptologist dead. Another body. A shadowy Egyptian figure trailing her through the streets of Paris, Rome and Cairo. And a sickness that creeps through her blood like something old and deliberate.

From the gilded salons of London to the dust-choked souks of Cairo, Cassandra is pulled deeper into a labyrinth of betrayal, poison and murder ? where the people closest to her are hiding more than she ever imagined, and where the line between curse and conspiracy begins to blur.

Someone wants the scarab. Someone is willing to kill for it. And the greatest danger of all may be sleeping under her own roof.

In the shadow of the pharaoh's tomb, trust no one ? and pray the wings of death pass you by.