As the daughter of two pharaohs and the sister of another, princess and high priestess Neferura is one of the foremost people in the kingdom. But as her co-regent mother and brother fight for power, she’s just another piece on their board – unless she can manage to break free.
In first grade we had a unit about ancient Egypt, where we learned all about how they worshipped cats and pulled brains down through mummies’ noses and invented paper. And of course we learned about the female pharaoh, Hatshepsut, who was often depicted wearing a beard and built lots of temples. Funnily enough, we didn’t learn about all the incest and murder. Nor did we – in some ways more interesting to me – did we learn about how exactly how little historians know about everyday life in ancient Egypt.
As such, it’s impressive what a rich world author Evans manages to create in this book, both in the royal court and in the religious sphere. The familial and political drama between Hatshepsut, Thutmose, and Neferura was also interesting, and I appreciated the complicated situation in which Neferura finds herself in her efforts to cool tensions between the two, even if it was a rather naive hope. I also enjoyed the author’s notes at the end discussing the historical context of the story, which I thought added a lot to the read.
However, I didn’t really find the characters particularly life-like. Senenmut’s pseudo-parental relationship with Neferura does strike a cord, but other important figures like Iset, Kamut, and Hathor felt more like stock figures to push the story along. The story takes a long time to get going too, only really picking up speed around the halfway mark. And Neferura’s political machinations, once she becomes aware that she must have some (though why it takes her twenty years of a precarious court to realize!) are contrived and somewhat dull. The ending also felt rushed, though I did like how things fell out and how they showed Neferura’s growth as a person.
Disclaimer: I received a copy of this book from NetGalley. This is my honest and voluntary review.