Published 10th April 2025 by Simon and Schuster.
From the cover of the book:
The Golden Hour is an epic dual timeline story which interweaves glory-seeking desert archaeologists, priceless treasures, Nefertiti’s tomb and the decadent cabarets of WW2 Cairo with restless expat lives in bohemian Beirut.
Archaeologist Lucie Fitzgerald's mother is dying – she's also been lying. As her home, the 'Paris of the East', Beirut, teeters on the brink of war in the ‘70s, Polly Fitzgerald has one last story to tell from her deathbed. It’s the story of her childhood best friend Juno and their life in 30s Cairo. Lucie travels home to be with her dying mother and discovers the truth about her family, Juno's work and their shared search for the greatest undiscovered tomb of all - Nefertiti's.
From the cities to the deserts, this transporting and moving story of a lost generation transformed by war is a study of great love and sacrifice in all its forms, the perfect novel for fans of Santa Montefiore, Lucinda Riley and Victoria Hislop.
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Beirut, 1975. Archaeologist Lucie Fitzgerald is called home from London to be with her dying mother, Polly. Lebanon is on the brink of civil war, but it is not this that is preying on Polly's mind. Instead, Polly knows it is finally time to share the truth about her childhood friend Juno with her daughter, before it is too late.
From her death bed, Polly has secrets to share with Lucie about what happened to beautiful, driven Juno, and the dream she has passed on to Lucie to discover the tomb of Nefertiti.
Kate Lord Brown's beautiful novel unfurls in two evocative timelines - Beirut in 1975, when Lucie travels home to be with her dying mother, and 1939, through the story that Polly shares with Lucie about the heady days she and Juno spent together in Cairo. Brown does an incredible job bringing time and place alive in both storylines, so you feel the political climate, the heat, the dust, the chaos, and the quiet moments of calm - particularly when it comes to the intoxicating atmosphere of ex-pats negotiating the ending of eras.
Moving back and forth between the two timelines, Brown spins stories that pound your emotions in more ways than one through meandering threads of enduring love, unbearable loss, sacrifice, passion, and sisterhood - finally revealing the secret that begins to emerge in only the way a truly accomplished storyteller can manage. In the telling, she immerses you completely in oodles of compelling Egyptian mythology and archaeological wonder, entwining Juno's ambition to find the tomb of Nefertiti with her struggle to have the accomplishments of female archaeologists recognised alongside their male counterparts - a theme which flows gloriously into Lucie's life too. If horses are your bag, then you will also find much in this novel to please.
I was totally consumed by this book, completely transported into the lives of the characters, and I shed more than a few tears as I travelled alongside them through their triumphs and tragedies. Sweeping and intensely moving, this is easily one of my books of 2025.
The Golden Hour is available to buy now in hardcover, ebook, and audio formats.
Thank you to Simon and Schuster/Books and the City for sending me a proof of this book in return for an honest review, and for inviting me to be part of this blog tour.
About the author:
KATE LORD BROWN was a finalist in ITV's The People's Author contest, and her novel The Perfume Garden, which has been published in nine languages, was shortlisted for the Romantic Novel of the Year 2014. Her books have been top ten bestsellers in the UK, Canada, and several European countries. In 2020 she was highly commended in the RNA Elizabeth Goudge Trophy. Kate has also written editorial, reviews and regular columns for Traveller, Conde Nast, Good Housekeeping, the Daily Telegraph, Sunday Express and others. She wrote the first book club column in the Middle East, introducing a host of writers to the region through the pages of Ahlan! After many years living overseas, she has returned to the wild and beautiful south-west of England, where she grew up.
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