It sounded like an interesting idea: two famous historical figures, Florence Nightingale and Gustave Flaubert meet while touring the Nile and have a \\\"passionate affair\\\". Except that it is more of a flirtatious intellectual friendship cut short. The book was overly descriptive about mundane things and many in our book club admitted to skimming parts of it. I like historical fiction but I found myself extremely bored reading about the \\\"problems\\\" of the idle rich dealing with servants and the inconveniences of travel in the \\\"Orient\\\". Skip this one.