"Well, I have to admit that I love ancient Egypt and I read Nefertiti because I read probably anything that comes out about Egypt. Nefertiti was the queen of Akhenaten, who was the heir to probably Egypt's most powerful dynasty, the 18th, in about 1350 BC. It tells the story through the eyes of Mutnodjmet, who was historically Nefertiti's sister. Their father is the Vizier Ay, the powerful second in command who really runs the country because Akhenaten is mainly interested in his god and building stuff. Mutnodjmet's mission is to keep an eye on Nefertiti and Nefertiti's mission is to keep an eye on Akhenaten and to rein in his excesses. Unfortunately, she does the opposite and, drunk with power, eggs him on in his heretic mission.
And so the tension of the book is Mutnodjmet watching this historical train wreck happen and being powerless to do anything about it and furthermore wanting her own quiet life. And it's all historical. A lot of this is in the historical record. And so the excitement in this book is how Moran tells the story. That's what you read the book kind of wondering how she's going to handle certain things.
I was a little disappointed because I felt that Moran didn't place us in Egypt. She's obviously never been to Egypt, has not really studied or read about the lives and how people lived. So there's a lot of anachronisms that crop up. She has people living in the hills, for example, as if this were kind of Los Angeles. She makes it sound a lot like people are living in the hills and there's waves. And the fact is people lived on the flats. They were afraid to live in the hills in Egypt because there were wild animals, there were flash floods, there was no water up there.
It could be - we could be in LA. Akhenaten could be somebody's crazy boss and we could be - this could be a novel about Oracle under Larry Ellison or Sacramento under the Gray Davis administration. It just feels a little generic. She has not done her research. I'd give Nefertiti two and half stars."
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