Tombs, Treasure and Tension: 14 Books Like The Mummy

Proper Victorian ladies don’t chase lost cities — but Ellie Mallory isn’t feeling very proper. When the ambitious archaeologist discovers a map to a mysterious ancient city, it’s her shot at rewriting Pre-Columbian history. The catch? A ruthless villain wants it too, and he’s not shy about violence. To beat him to the ruins, Ellie reluctantly teams up with Adam Bates — a roguish, perpetually shirtless surveyor.

But this race against danger is bigger than scholarship: a mythical artifact of terrifying power is hidden in the ruins, and it cannot fall into the wrong hands.

Lily Wilder wants nothing to do with treasure hunting — or her absent father’s legacy. Instead, she runs fake treasure hunts through Utah’s red rock canyons, scraping together enough to reclaim her family’s lost ranch. Then Leo Grady, her greatest heartbreak, strolls back into her life as a tourist. Lily would happily leave him in the wilderness.

But when their trip goes spectacularly wrong and the legendary hidden treasure turns out to be real, these two must confront their complicated history — and gamble everything on one last hunt.

Dr. Miriam Jacobs has one shot to prove herself: lead an expedition through the Amazon to find the legendary Lost City of the Moon. Journalist Rafael Monfils joins the team — but his real mission is sabotage. Sworn to protect the sacred city and his mother’s legacy, Rafa does everything possible to steer Miri off course. The problem? She’s impossibly tenacious. And endearingly charming.

As reluctant allies in a dangerous jungle, their competing agendas grow complicated — especially when a rival crew arrives, making the lost city suddenly, dangerously worth fighting for together.

Ornithologist Beth Pickering has no interest in Professor Devon Lockley — even if he is devastatingly charming — after he swoops in and steals her rare deathwhistler bird. They’re rivals, full stop. But when a prestigious Birder of the Year competition requires capturing an endangered caladrius, Beth and Devon reluctantly join forces. Keeping things professional proves difficult when shared accommodations raise the one-bed question.

Then things get truly complicated: someone is sabotaging the competition, and the only person Beth can trust is the infuriating, irresistible man she’s been trying to avoid.

Adriana Jones just wanted a souvenir. Instead, she accidentally slips on a bracelet meant for renowned archaeologist Andrew Jones — and now it won’t come off. Inconvenient, since Andrew needs it to locate an ancient lost treasure buried deep in the Colombian jungle. His solution: Adriana comes along. Suddenly her relaxing vacation involves crawling through crypts and hacking through rainforest with an infuriatingly attractive doctor who shares her last name.

The jungle is dangerous, the treasure is real, and Adriana is beginning to suspect the greatest discovery on this trip might not be archaeological.

Archaeologist Brynn Galloway’s career is already hanging by a thread. The last thing she needs is a stolen Sumerian tablet dragging her into the Bolivian jungle alongside Dr. Tristan Magee — a mercenary physicist whose theories about ancient extraterrestrial visitors are as dangerously compelling as the man himself. She wants answers. He wants the artifact at any cost.

But as rivals close in and the jungle surrenders impossible secrets, they discover this tablet doesn’t just rewrite history — it threatens to shatter it entirely. Survival requires trust. Trust leads somewhere far more dangerous.

At a remote Greek archaeological site — the mythic birthplace of the Olympics — four very different women unearth an artifact that shouldn’t exist. Kara is fleeing her own wedding. Patty is desperately seeking love. Z has just been dumped and fired, again. And lone wolf Elise is one bad day from going completely rogue.

When their discovery threatens to expose a powerful man’s secrets, these dirt-crusted strangers must do something harder than rewriting ancient history — they must become friends. One summer, one impossible find, one chance to change everything.

The mythical Vase of Venus Aurelia has been missing since 1932 — and Margot Rhodes, shovel-novice, is determined to find it. Armed with a century-old explorer’s journal, she follows teenage adventurer Van Keane’s poetic entries through Pompeii’s ruins. Then his statue comes to life. Suddenly Van is very real, very sharp-edged, and nothing like the romantic wordsmith she imagined.

With Venus herself throwing deadly obstacles in their path, Margot and the infuriating boy she accidentally resurrected must work together to recover the shattered vase — before their story ends in ruins.

Archaeology grad student Lex Larson’s life unravels when her mother reveals she doesn’t know who Lex’s father is. Almost immediately, something shifts — dreams turn disturbingly vivid, and Lex begins seeing and knowing things she shouldn’t. Desperate for distraction, she joins an Egyptian excavation led by the enigmatic Professor Marcus Bahur. But the dig offers no escape. Deciphering a mysterious stone tablet pulls Lex into a four-thousand-year-old prophecy written by a dying god.

Now she must trust her terrifying new psychic abilities to uncover the truth — about the excavation, about Bahur, and about herself.

San Francisco, the Roaring Twenties: Prohibition is in full swing, and dark magic is rolling in with the fog. Archaeologist Lowe Magnusson is carrying a priceless Egyptian amulet — and expecting an easy payday. Then he collides with Hadley Bacall, his patron’s fiercely composed daughter, and everything gets complicated. Hadley has a secret: deadly spirits shadow her constantly, held barely in check by sheer willpower.

Lowe is already testing that willpower dangerously. But the djed amulet carries a power neither of them fully understands, and desire may prove just as destructive as the magic itself.

Egypt, 1936. History student Mel Hawkins retrieves a priceless amulet from the Temple of Seti — only to discover her guide is a Nazi operative sent to kill her and deliver it to the Third Reich. Barely escaping, she reluctantly joins forces with brooding museum employee Bes Belzoni and his cousin Cecilio. But her companions are hiding dangerous secrets — ones tied directly to Mel’s own mysterious family history and an ancient magic she never imagined possible.

As fascism tightens its grip across Europe, Mel must choose between saving herself and taking a stand against the darkness.

The kingdom of Khetara is fracturing. A dying pharaoh, whispered rebellion, and a forgotten prophecy are pulling four strangers toward a collision. Sita, a princess, uncovers a betrayal that threatens the entire royal court. Neff, a priestess-in-training, struggles to understand visions that may not come from the gods alone.

Rae, a farmer’s daughter, burns with grievances against the crown. Karim, a tomb robber, accidentally awakens an ancient evil among the pyramids. Bloodshed is inevitable. But if these four can unite against the darkness, one of them may yet determine who rules Khetara.

New York, 1907. Dr. Warren Ford’s daughters couldn’t be more different — society-bound Lila and adventure-hungry Tess both live in their famous archaeologist father’s shadow. When a secretive organization seeks the legendary Serpent’s Crown, buried inside the mysterious Tomb of the Five Ladies, they don’t want Dr. Ford — they want his daughters.

What begins as Lila’s debutante season turns sinister when Tess is kidnapped and shipped across the Atlantic. Now Lila and her father must race to recover both Tess and the Crown before ruthless men unleash its ancient, dangerous power.

Dr. Clarissa Bell arrived in Giza to make her archaeological mark — not to sort pottery while male colleagues steal the credit. But when she discovers a scribe’s palette stained with rare blue pigment, she stumbles into something far more dangerous than academic rivalry. Suddenly Clarissa is navigating Cairo’s black markets, colonial auction houses, and tombs that aren’t quite empty — armed only with her Cambridge education and a talent for sarcasm.

Then there’s Benedict Quinn: charming, mysterious, and deeply inconvenient. When professors carry pistols and dealers have government connections, sharp wit may be her only survival tool.