Tagged: nefertiti
Black Moon by F. M. Sherrill & Becca C. Smith
(Cover picture courtesy of Goodreads.)
Shea Harper is forced to stay in boring, hot and dry Phoenix, Arizona for college. But once she meets the enigmatic yet positively egocentric Lucian, Shea’s life changes forever.
She finds out that she comes from a long line of descendants called Vessels. In her soul is the key to destroying an ancient prison protecting the world from darkness itself: Lucian’s father.
Up until now, Lucian has captured every descendant except Shea. With her powers awakening, all vampires want to drag her down to the pit. But Lucian is territorial. She’s the first female Vessel… and he’s convinced she belongs to him.
Saucy and tauntingly surprising, Black Moon captures the struggle between burning desire or denying the heart. This is a love story that will drain you dry.
[Full disclosure: I received a free print copy in conjunction with the blog tour in exchange for an honest review.]
I really do love the characters in this novel. Both Smith and Sherrill did excellent jobs with their respective characters, Shea and Lucian. I felt like I really was in Shea’s and Lucian’s shoes during their chapters and I understood their motivations for their actions. I’ll admit it: sometimes I’m a sucker for tales of forbidden love. And boy, does Lucian ever fit the bill here. Our dark vampire here used to be a slave in Egypt who loved the beautiful Nefertiti but was killed for it. After all these centuries, he still loves her despite the tragedy that befell her because of him. His guilt and his love are clear in many aspects of his life…until he meets Shea.
As an Egypt buff, I loved the infusion of some history into Black Moon, but it was rather disappointing that Smith and Sherrill played fast and loose with the facts. No, Nefertiti was hardly captured in battle along with her father. No, her father’s name was not Ur-Nammu. And no, she was certainly not a slave at court with the name of ‘wife’; by all accounts she was greatly beloved of Akhenaten. Now, I can definitely forgive some historical inaccuracies in the name of a good story. But when Lucian passively mentions that Queen Hatshepsut constantly reeked of myrrh, I had to laugh. Hatshepsut was far before Nefertiti’s time and therefore Lucian’s time (since he was human then). There were three kings with extremely long reigns between the two women, so there’s no way Lucian actually would have met her.
My griping about historical accuracy aside, I really enjoyed Black Moon. It has quite a fast plot and so many twists and turns that my head was spinning by the end. Yes, in the beginning it seems to be mostly character-driven but by the end it seemed to be more plot-driven. In reality, it’s actually the best of both worlds: it’s a fast-paced novel with extremely well developed and believable characters. I thought it got a little melodramatic toward the end, but that’s a personal thing rather than an actual flaw with the novel. The cliffhanger at the end was excruciating; I would have read the next book without it anyway, but with a cliffhanger like that I know I definitely have to read the next book now.
I give this book 4/5 stars.
Kiya: Mother of a King by Katie Hamstead
(Cover picture courtesy of The Writerly Exploits of Mara Valderran.)
Nefertiti has forced Naomi to flee Amarna with Malachi and the three children. But even under the protection of Naomi’s family in Thebes, Nefertiti still hunts her and Tut. Nefertiti sends assassins to kill them, and while Naomi fights to protect the children, Malachi fights to keep her safe.
With three children in tow, one of which isn’t her own, she is labeled the harlot outcast wife of the pharaoh and is shunned. She isn’t safe among her own people, and flees from being stoned to death. Although her family protects her, she must find a way to survive.
While Naomi struggles to keep herself and Tut alive, old adversaries return as Smenkhkare takes advantage of Akhenaten’s ailing health. Naomi must rely on Horemheb’s promise to protect Tut’s birthright, but her feelings for Malachi could cause more problems with Horemheb than she expects.
[Full disclosure: I requested and received a free ebook copy from the author in exchange for an honest review.]
Somewhere around a third of the way into the book I told myself, “Just finish the chapter, then you should go to bed. You’re working tomorrow.”
Then at around 50% I told myself, “You should really go to bed now. It’s one in the morning.”
By 75% I told myself, “Ah, screw it. You’ll be tired tomorrow anyway so you might as well just finish the book!”
And so, at 2:30am I finished Kiya: Mother of a King and didn’t regret a thing. I was very tired the next day and still had no regrets. That’s how good this book is.
The thing is, Mother of a King is very different from Hope of the Pharaoh, the first book. Away from the scheming of the royal court, we get to see Kiya’s nurturing side as she finally gets to marry the man she loves. She’s back in her hometown with her family and working on starting a new life for herself, away from Akhenaten and the schemes of Nefertiti. Finally, Kiya is gone and Naomi is back in her familiar Hebrew neighbourhood. Not everything is perfect as she’s accused of being a harlot but she faces the adversity well.
There is so much character development in this story. Naomi/Kiya is allowed to flourish for once and be herself. In addition to that, I love seeing Katie Hamstead’s take on Tut, especially his transition from royal life as the only heir to the throne to humble boy in a poor section of town. Just like with Hope of the Pharaoh I was really impressed with Horemheb’s character. He certainly has his faults (his ruthlessness) but in the end you can tell he still loves Naomi, totally and utterly. Even if she’s married to Malachi. I’m a sucker for the tragic unrequited love angle, I know.
I can’t in all honesty call the plot fast-paced, but that isn’t a bad thing. The truth is that I love that the plot slows down. It gives so much more time for character development. It’s never boring (thus the staying up until two in the morning) and it really did pick up at the end. You can really tell the third book is going to be exciting but I did love this little change of pace for the series.
I give this book 5/5 stars.
Nefertiti by Michelle Moran
(Cover picture courtesy of Michelle Moran’s website.)
Nefertiti and her younger sister, Mutnodjmet, have been raised in a powerful family that has provided wives to the rulers of Egypt for centuries. Ambitious, charismatic, and beautiful, Nefertiti is destined to marry Amunhotep, an unstable young pharaoh. It is hoped that her strong personality will temper the younger ruler’s heretical desire to forsake Egypt’s ancient gods.
From the moment of her arrival in Thebes, Nefertiti is beloved by the people, but she fails to see that powerful forces are plotting against her husband’s reign. The only person brave enough to warn the queen is her younger sister, yet remaining loyal to Nefertiti will force Mutnodjmet into a dangerous political game—one that could cost her everything she holds dear.
To put it bluntly, Nefertiti was disappointing.
I honestly don’t know what I was expecting, but I was hoping to at least have the story told from Nefertiti’s own point of view, not her half-sister’s. Mutnodjmet to me at least, had no backbone and remained woefully naïve about the political machinations of the court throughout most of the novel. When a conspiracy was uncovered, it was either her servant, mother, father or Queen Tiye who revealed it to her. She was not a very proactive narrator, instead reacting to events as they came her way.
Mutnodjmet was incredibly reluctant to be part of the royal family, which I can understand, but she still allowed herself to be pushed around. It was rather frustrating that she was so innocent that she had never told a lie (since she understood the laws of Ma’at) until she was thirteen. Nefertiti, who was supposed to be the subject of the novel, came off as shallow, petty, vain and…a bitch. There was really not one sympathetic bone in her body and although I loathe swearing, there is really no other word that can describe her. And maybe, you know, Nefertiti was like that in real life and was just as power-hungry as her husband, Akhenaten. However, she must have had at least some redeeming qualities, right?
The plot of Nefertiti is relatively slow-paced, but when you’re a regular reader of historical fiction, that’s usually not an issue. Michelle Moran stuck mostly to the facts, even though not as closely as she did in Cleopatra’s Daughter, and did include a historical note explaining why she changed things where she did. Perhaps it was just me who didn’t like the characters because I do tend to lean toward strong, rather cynical types. Or, perhaps, I will have to do what I’ve been threatening to do for a year now and write a novel from Nefertiti’s point of view.
Now that is most definitely wishful thinking.
I give this book 3/5 stars.
The Twelfth Transforming by Pauline Gedge
(Cover picture courtesy of Teen Ink.)
Akhenaten…the powerful, the pious, the infamous. Raised in the heat of the palace harem, mated to his beautiful, dangerous cousin Nefertiti, the young Pharaoh soon turned his passion heavenward. His love of the sun god Ra seared his being and consumed his worldly attentions. As Akhenaten’s rule soared to its finale, ancient Egypt teetered on the edge of a cataclysm, and his family’s curse became an empire’s downfall.
Pauline Gedge is one of the best writers of historical fiction set in ancient Egypt and The Twelfth Transforming proves it.
Set in the (in)famous 18th Dynasty of Egypt, this novel chronicles the entirety of the heretic pharaoh Akhenaten’s reign through the eyes of his domineering mother, Queen Tiye. Tiye is a ruthless woman by virtue of being Great Royal Wife to pharaoh Amunhotep III (Akhenaten’s father), and as such, is not always a sympathetic narrator. But she is so three dimensional that she commands your attention and you miss her forceful personality near the end of the novel when she dies.
Pauline Gedge paints a vivid picture of the 18th Dynasty and fills her novel with authentic historical details. Most of the events in the novel are correct, however there are gaps in history that she fills with the most salacious and dramatic explanations. But readers also have to keep in mind that The Twelfth Transforming was written in 1984 and reflects the information she had available at the time. If you do not mind tiny historical inaccuracies (most of which are only noticeable to fanatics like myself), then this is certainly the novel for you.
I give this book 4/5 stars.