The Alexandria Semaphore

On the very night the young Maxime Touta first arrived in Alexandria, the khedive died. It was January 1863 and the dawn of a new era. Egypt was in thrall to the French, whose Suez Canal would transform Egypt's fortunes, and the pawn of the British, and yet she was Ottoman at heart.

For the thirteen-year-old it proved an awakening of every sort, for there he met Albin Balinvin, the Cairo correspondent of the Semaphore d'Alexandrie, a man who was not afraid to speak or write the truth. In years to come he would be Maxime's teacher and mentor. And Nada Sahel came into his life - a young orphan girl under his father's protection and, like the Toutas, a Syrian exile. She would be his life's passion.

A successful journalist Maxime looks back over a dramatic and romantic period in history - Egypt's and his own. He casts a wry, affectionate eye over the foibles of both the Touta clan and the nation's rulers, the exuberant nature of family life alongside the political machinations of the day. The Alexandria Semaphore is an enthralling family saga, an authentic reconstruction of Egyptian history and the most tender of love stories.