The beginning of pharaoh Akhenaten's reign and religious revolution seen through the eyes of a young priest, a palace servant, a royal physician and an architect. The book follows these Egyptians from the end of the prosperous and stable reign of the legendary pharaoh Amenhotep the Third until the fifth year of Akhenaten's reign and deals with their feelings of uncertainty and the choices they face as they start to discover that their new pharaoh is very different than his predecessors.