Egypt, 1925. She touches an amulet in a three-thousand-year-old tomb — and wakes up inside it.
One amulet, three books, two eras: in 1925 Annie Cole finds a piece of gold and silver in the tomb of Ramesses I — and wakes three thousand years earlier.
Journalist Annie Cole finds an amulet in the tomb of Ramesses I. The moment she touches it, the desert is gone — and Memphis is alive.
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Cairo, 1930. Some encounters change more than just the present.
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The close of the trilogy. Two eras, one amulet — and a choice that holds in both.
Tell me when it's outThe tomb smelled of three thousand years of silence.
I have often tried, since then, to describe that smell to someone, and failed every time. Cold stone, yes. Ancient dust. But beneath it there was something else, something I could not name that morning and still cannot name now, after everything that happened. Perhaps it was simply time itself. Perhaps that is what time smells like when it has been left alone long enough.
I stood in the entrance and breathed it in, my heart beating so loudly I was afraid the desert behind me might hear.
A current of air drifted up from inside the tomb, cooler than the morning outside, and brushed across my bare forearms. My body hesitated. I did not.
Christina Baumgartner writes about women who are at home in two places at once — and about what remains when time shifts. The Amulet Trilogy is her first major project.
Frequently asked
In October 1925, journalist Annie Cole finds an amulet of gold and silver in the tomb of Ramesses I, eighty kilometres south of Luxor. When she touches it, the desert is gone and Memphis is alive — she wakes three thousand years earlier. The trilogy follows what grows between the two eras, and what survives of it.
Three: “The Scent of Amber Across Time” (Book 1), “The Weight of Stone Across Time” (Book 2) and “The Silence of Sand Across Time” (Book 3). The story runs continuously — Book 1 is where it starts.
Book 1 is out now on Amazon: the English edition on amazon.com, the German edition on amazon.de. It is included in Kindle Unlimited at no extra cost.
Yes. Chapter 1 is available in full on this website, no sign-up required. Chapters 2 to 4 come as a PDF through the newsletter.
Yes. Book 1 is published in German as „Der Duft von Amber und Zeit“. Books 2 and 3 are „Die Schwere von Stein und Zeit“ and „Die Stille von Sand und Zeit“. The German version of this website links to the German editions.
Yes. “The Weight of Stone Across Time” is set in Cairo, 1930, and has been out since September 2026 — as an ebook on amazon.com, included in Kindle Unlimited at no extra cost. Book 3 is being written; subscribers to the newsletter hear the date first.
Historical time-travel romance. The books connect 1920s Egypt — the Valley of the Kings, Luxor, Cairo — with ancient Egypt under Ramesses I, and follow women who are at home in two places at once.
