Never, ever have I worked through an author's backlist so quickly. I picked up Cleopatra's Daughter in late August, and bing-bam-boom - now I have to wait till February for my next hit of Michelle Moran's exquisitely written historical fiction.
I have to say, though, that Nefertiti is the weak link out of the three, in part because the titular character is, forgive my French, a bitch on wheels. She is every girl you ever hated in high school, on steroids. Combine Gordon Gecko, the mom from The Manchurian Candidate, and Regina George in Mean Girls and you come kind of close to Nefertiti. This charming young lady is chosen to marry the wing-nut, I mean Pharoah, Amunhotep, who she is supposed to rein in and make more stable.
Ummmm, no. She uses Amunhotep (who soon re-names himself Akenaten and begins Egypt's, if not the world's, first experiment with monotheism) to try and fulfill her own desire to be remembered forever. Fortunately, the book is narrated by N's sister Mudjodmnet (which means "Sweet Child of the Goddess Mut - no, I'm not a dork, not at all) who is very likeable, although not as strong a narrator as those in Moran's other two Egypt novels. But the tale of palace intrigue, of balancing personal desires with family obligations, is definitely worth the read.
Full disclosure: I am a complete and utter history geek, and next to the Jazz Age, I would pick ancient Egypt as the time period I'd want to live in. (When, unlike other eras I could mention, they actually BATHED.) Moran's novels make me feel as if I'm living in that period. She is utterly frank in her author's notes as to what is fact, what is fiction, and what is a blend of both. I also love the fact that she is also a history geek, and encourage all like-minded followers to visit her blog at http://michellemoran.blogspot.com/, where she posts the most amazing links to recent historical discoveries. (Like, they might have found Amelia Earhart's bones!)
Alas, I do have to wait until Feb. 2011 for Moran's next novel, in which she regrettably departs from Egypt and spins a tale of Madame Tussaud during the French Revolution, a period in which I'm not nearly as interested (and in which they bathed much less frequently.) But I'm still in. If anyone can make 18th century France smell good, it's Moran.
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