In justice to the author of "Queen Moo's Talisman", it may be recorded that at the time of its writing, there was no intention of allowing the verses to go into print; they were penned only for the one to whom they are dedicated. The songs introduced have been arranged to the metre of the two or three ancient melodies yet occasionally heard among the natives of Yucatan. The one to the rain gods is a versification (set to the tune even now used in a sun-dance) of an old Maya prayer translated from that language by Dr. Le Plongeon and published in his work "Queen Moo and the Egyptian Sphinx." The melody to which the Love Song is set is not Maya. In connection with the lines touching upon love and pain it may be remarked that in the Maya language there is but one word to express both. In this poem are represented as nearly as possible, the religious ideas of the Mayas, their belief in KU, the Supreme Intelligence; in the immortality of the soul, and in successive lives on earth before returning to the great Source whence all emanate; also their rites and ceremonies as gathered from traditions of the natives of Yucatan, the fresco paintings found at Chichen, and the books of ancient Maya authors.

The premise for this book is best summarized in the words of its author, who writes: "Plutarch, in his Life of Solon, informs us that Psenophis and Sonchis -- one a priest of Heliopolis, and the other of Sais -- told the Athenian legislator that 9,000 years before his visit to Egypt, on account of the submergence of the Island of Atlantis (Land of Mu of the Mayas) all communications had been interrupted with the Western countries. If the Egyptians learned the art of writing from the Mayas, as no doubt they did, it must have been in times anterior to the cataclysm. In this we would find the explanation of why identical characters are being found on the most ancient monuments of Egypt and those of Mayach, having the same meaning and containing the relation of the same cosmogonical traditions."

Since their mother's death, Carter and Sadie have become near strangers. While Sadie has lived with her grandparents in London, her brother has traveled the world with their father, the brilliant Egyptologist, Dr. Julius Kane. One night, Dr. Kane brings the siblings together for a "research experiment" at the British Museum, where he hopes to set things right for his family. Instead, he unleashes the Egyptian god Set, who banishes him to oblivion and forces the children to flee for their lives. From the creator of the hit Percy Jackson series.