Goodreads asked Gary Jonas:

Where did you get the idea for your most recent book?

Gary Jonas I'll go with my most recent published book, Anubis Nights. I've always been fascinated by ancient Egypt. I watched Bob Brier's excellent series of lectures about the history of ancient Egypt from The Great Courses, and he mentioned a letter that King Tut's widow wrote to a Hittite king asking him to send her one of his sons to marry. That was strange because the Hittites were enemies of Egypt, and she ended her letter with the line, "I am afraid." Brier also discussed a theory about Tut being murdered. The most likely suspects were the vizier Aye, and the general of Tut's army, Horemheb. As vizier is one of the root words of wizard, and as I write fantasy, how could I possibly resist that? So I sent Jonathan Shade and Kelly Chan back to ancient Egypt. I had to do a lot more research on this novel than anything else I've ever written, and as it's the first in a time travel trilogy, I had to get most of the research for three time periods done in advance. Yes, there are scenes set in ancient Egypt, scenes in the 1870s, and scenes in the 1920s. Can you say "challenge?" I knew you could.

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