Hour of the Cobra

By: Maiya Williams

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Hardcover | 18 July 2006 | Edition Number 1

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This sequel to the award-winning time-travel adventure, "The Golden Hour," takes readers to Cleopatra's Egypt
This time fourteen-year-old Xanthe leads the adventure as the four time-traveling kids from "The Golden Hour" make a trip back to ancient Egypt to rescue the library at Alexandria from destruction by Caesar's troops. Xanthe is particularly excited to visit Egypt, where she hopes to get a glimpse of Cleopatra. But she gets more than the quick peek she bargained for when young Cleopatra mistakes her for the goddess Isis. The princess begs Xanthe to intervene in a royal feud between Cleopatra and her brother Ptolemy. Xanthe, who's feeling overshadowed by her own brother, Xavier, is tempted to help the princess, thus changing history and setting off a chain of events that traps Rowan and Nina in time limbo.
The Egyptian setting and action-packed plot makes this a particularly exciting installment in the series, and the African American heroine is a welcome addition to the ranks of fantasy protagonists.
Awards and praise for "The Golden Hour," the prequel to "The Hour of the Cobra"
Book Sense Pick
International Reading Association Intermediate Fiction Award
Southern California Booksellers' Association Children's Book Prize
"A trip well worth taking." -"The New York Times"
"One of the few fantasies with any African American characters..." - "Booklist"
"Action-packed and laden with good-natured humor, Williams' tale is a journey worth taking." - "Publisher's Weekly"

Industry Reviews

History mini-lectures and character development shoulder aside plot in this sequel to The Golden Hour (2004). Rivalrous African-American twins Xanthe and Xavier, along with new friends Rowan and his precocious little sister Nina, go back to Ancient Egypt on a mission to filch manuscripts from the Library of Alexandria. Impelled largely by spite for her pushy brother, Xanthe defiantly befriends the young and frightened Cleopatra-then discovers that by changing the past, she's created a changed future too. So focused is Williams on following Xanthe as she wrestles with her guilt and her conflicting feelings for Xavier, that meetings with Julius Caesar and even an expedition into the bowels of the Great Pyramid to rescue Caesar's kidnapped young heir Octavian seem just distractions. The consequences of Xanthe's meddling are erased without much difficulty on the way to a neat, shiny ending. Displaying a preference for telling rather than showing, the author takes nearly 70 pages just to activate the time machine and closes with a heavy-handed analysis of why her young characters make a good team. By that time, few readers will care. (afterwords) (Fantasy. 10-12) (Kirkus Reviews)

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