Based upon an actual incident from the early days of the French imperialist drive into North Africa, Brian Moore's latest bestseller, The Magician's Wife tells a profound story of political will in conflict with spiritual belief--and of one woman's desires and convictions. Summoned to the grand country estate of Napoleon III, the famed illusionist Henri Lambert and his wife Emmeline are drawn into an elaborate plan to further French influence in North Africa and subdue the rebellious Arab tribes. An ambitious, intelligent man, Lambert will go to desperate lengths to satisfy his emperor. Emmeline, meanwhile, undergoes a spiritual conversion, shedding her former notions of patriotism and propriety in the hot glare of the desert sun. From the splendor and intrigue of the French royal court of the 1850s to the wild majesty of the Sahara, The Magician's Wife is an exciting, exotic, and glamorously seductive novel.