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Reviewed by Jamie Michele for Readers' Favorite
Leah Moyes’s Soul Thief is set in Thebes in 1184 BCE, where eighteen-year-old Akila Nady lives as the privileged daughter of Kheti Nady, a royal scribe serving Pharaoh Ramses III. Beneath that life, Akila assumes the name Akl, a disguised tomb thief who steals funerary treasures to finance relief for Set Ma’at, the workers’ village where hunger and a deadly illness have taken people she once loved. Her closest ally is Moises, a former Nubian soldier who serves as her protector and guards her secret. As Ramses vows to punish grave robbery across Egypt, Akila’s secret raids place her in increasing danger. Her father’s plans for her marriage to Sethos, a captain in Pharaoh’s chariotry, place her future beside a man whose allegiance belongs to the crown she is defying.
Leah Moyes’s Soul Thief has a wonderful sense of character. Akila is fascinating, with a stubborn confidence that makes her feel fully fleshed out, especially when her certainty runs headlong into feelings she has yet to understand. Moyes develops the romance with Sethos beautifully, letting guarded conversations gradually turn intimate, so their attachment feels completely natural. Moyes is also superb with ancient Egypt, giving the book a strong sense of period beyond its central mission. As Akila moves across Thebes, Moyes turns those settings into almost characters in their own right, from Karnak’s moonlit columns surrounding her meeting with Sethos to a Western Valley tomb where torchlight exposes a concealed latch behind a painted wall. Intelligently written, immersive, and with a heroine I thoroughly enjoyed, readers who love historical fiction will adore Soul Thief.
