Hello, history lovers, mystery seekers, and fellow travelers through the dark corridors of the past.
I’ve been quiet lately. You might have noticed. The blog posts have been sparse, the social media updates cryptic, and when friends have asked what I’m working on, I’ve found myself saying things like “research” and “a project” and then changing the subject.
The truth is, I’ve been buried. Not in the ground—not yet—but in the archives. In the papyri. In the silences between the lines of history, where the dead whisper things the living were never meant to hear.
And today, I’m finally ready to share what I’ve found.
I’m thrilled to announce my new fiction series: The Kessler & Ashworth Files
It follows Dr. Miriam Kessler—an Egyptologist, a reluctant member of a secret society called the Order of the Scarab, and a woman who has spent fifteen years listening to the dead when everyone else told her to stay silent.
The Order doesn’t fund scholars to publish papers. They fund them to solve. Murder. Conspiracy. Usurpation. The cold cases of antiquity, investigated with modern forensics and ancient intuition. And then, quietly, the Order corrects the record. Not for fame. For ma’at. Balance.
But the truth, as Miriam learns, has enemies. And some secrets refuse to stay buried.
Why I Wrote This
I’ve spent years studying ancient Egypt—the art, the architecture, the endless lists of kings and battles and offerings to the gods. But the more I learned, the more I noticed something strange.
The official record is full of holes.
Princes who disappear without explanation. Kings who rise to power with no clear claim. Monuments built by men whose predecessors were erased from history as if they never existed.
We call it “damnatio memoriae”—the condemnation of memory. The Romans had a word for it because they did it too. But the Egyptians perfected it. They didn’t just kill their rivals. They unmade them. Deleted them from inscriptions. Stole their tombs. Buried their bodies in unmarked pits where no one would ever find them.
And then they built temples on top of the silence.
The Kessler & Ashworth Files is my attempt to fill in those holes. Not with dry academic footnotes—but with story. With character. With the messy, terrifying, heartbreaking humanity of people who lived and died and loved and betrayed and built empires on the bones of the forgotten.
It’s fiction. Let me be clear about that. Miriam Kessler is not real. The Order of the Scarab does not exist (as far as you know). But the questions the series asks are very, very real:
F.Y.I
It’s fiction. Let me be clear about that. Miriam Kessler is not real. The Order of the Scarab does not exist (as far as you know). But the questions the series asks are very, very real:
- How do we know the past is true?
- Who gets to write history?
- What happens to the voices that are left out?
- And what do we owe the dead?
What to Expect
- Grounded history. I’ve done my research. The dates, the dynasties, the archaeology—it’s all real. The fiction lives in the gaps.
- Slow-burn tension. Miriam doesn’t solve cases in a single night. She follows threads for months, years, decades. The dead are patient. So is she.
- A touch of the uncanny. Ancient Egypt was a world of magic, ritual, and gods who walked among mortals. The series honors that. Some things can’t be explained by CT scans and carbon dating.
- Julian Ashworth. Hot. Sexy. Irritating. Deadly with a pistol. Miriam hates that she might need him. You’ll hate that you love him.
- Real stakes. People die in these stories. Good people. People you’ll care about. The truth has a cost, and Miriam pays it over and over again.
Where to Start
The first excerpt is live now: Case No. 1 — The Architect’s Silence
You can read it Here
Over the coming weeks, I’ll be posting:
- Full chapters
- Character profiles
- Research notes (what’s real, what’s invented, and why it matters)
- A deep dive into the real history of the Step Pyramid and other mysteries
- Q&A sessions where you can ask Miriam (and Julian) anything (Coming Soon)
If you enjoy the series, please share it with someone who loves history, mystery, or just a damn good story.
A Final Thought
Before I go, I want to leave you with something Miriam says in the first chapter. She’s arguing with her mentor about whether the dead deserve the truth, even when it’s painful.
“The dead can’t speak for themselves. That’s our job. And if we don’t do it, no one will.”
I believe that. Not just about ancient Egypt—about all of history. About the people who lived and died and left behind only fragments. About the stories that didn’t make it into the textbooks.
We can’t give them back their lives. But we can give them back their voices.
That’s what The Kessler & Ashworth Files is trying to do.
I hope you’ll come along for the journey.
Read the first case here: The Kessler & Ashworth Files: Case No. 1 — The Architect’s Silence]
The dead dream of justice. And sometimes, just sometimes, the living deliver.
— xuholyanubisx 2026
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