Continuing the 2025 Summer Reading Spectacular, Steve chats with Rachel Louise Driscoll, author of The House of Two Sisters, about her background as a librarian, the blending of Victorian Gothic and Egyptian mythology in her book, sisterhood (real and mythic!), and why Victorian England was primed for Egyptomania! Following the interview, in The Circ Desk segment, Rebecca from Library Reads and April from NoveList offer reading recommendations related to Rachel’s book!

Read the transcript!

A young Victorian Egyptologist traverses the Nile River on a mission to undo a curse that may have befallen her family in this spellbinding novel.

Essex, 1887. Clementine’s ability to read hieroglyphs makes her invaluable at her father’s Egyptian relic parties, which have become the talk of the town. But at one such party, the words she interprets from an unusual amulet strike fear into her heart. As her childhood games about Isis and Nephthys—sister goddesses who protect the dead—take on a devastating resonance in her life, and tragedy slowly consumes her loved ones, she wonders what she and her father may have unleashed.

Five years later, Clemmie arrives in Cairo desperate to save what remains of her family back home. There, she meets a motley crew of unwitting English travelers about to set sail down the Nile—including an adventurer with secrets of his own—and joins them on a mission to reach Denderah, a revered religious site, where she hopes to return the amulet and atone for her sins.

With each passing day, she is further engulfed in a life she’s yearned for all along. But as long-buried secrets and betrayals rise to the surface, Clemmie must reconcile the impossibility of living in the light while her past keeps her anchored to the darkness.

SHOW NOTES:
The House of Two Sisters

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Library Reads

The Circ Desk recommends:
 London Seance Society by Sarah Penner
 Veronica Speedwell series by Deanna Raybourn
 A Master of Djinn by P. Djèlí Clark
 Shelf Life: Chronicles of a Cairo Bookseller by Nadia Wassef