🛕🛕🛕 1/2
Daughter of Egypt
Marie Benedict
St. Martin’s Press
320 Pages
MacMillan Audio
Goodreads/Amazon/Bookshop.org
I love historical fiction; it may be my favorite genre. Although I always read Marie Benedict’s current novels (I admit to not having gone back to read old ones) and I tend to be mixed on them. Unlike Fiona Davis, who specializes in American and specifically, New York history, Benedict’s works have been wide ranging. I think that is both a curse and a blessing. On the whole, I believe the breadth of the content of her novels may make them feel more on the surface. This one is different; Benedict’s love for Egyptian history is evident. As she states in her notes, she researched this subject area extensively before writing this novel. I learned more about Egyptian history in this book than I ever did in school. I did know the terminology for Egyptian artifacts more or less. This is something that might be a disadvantage for some, as there was no glossary; one might need to stop and look words up which might annoy some readers. I love learning from literature and this was a positive for me.
Benedict establishes her trademark parallels between the two timelines. Both involve women who were ahead of their time, battling the inherent sexism that existed in their respective cultures that dictated against strong women who were leaders, one of her country and one of her field of archaelogy. Where things got less interesting for me is the romance that she always includes in her novels, which takes the focus away from the history and tends to make her books seem more formulaic, and there is, indeed a formula in her novels that includes romance. I wish that instead of including the requisite romance, she could obtain the “human” element by using family or female friendship instead. I think, in particular, it took away from the archaeologist timeline story because we are supposed to see a woman who is strong who wants to be a leader in her field but she is distracted by love, which is the opposite of what I wanted to see.
One thing that made this novel a difficult read was that the language was a bit stilted, which I think comes from both of the timelines that were part of it. Because of the times referenced in the book, the language of the characters was going to be formal, with more of a Jane Austen field to it. While this is appropriate, and it could not have been written in contemporary language, it made the novel a bit tedious, especially at the beginning when I was getting used to it. This is where the audio gets in handy. I had the audio for the book and listened to most of it which helped immensely. The narrator, with her British accent, was good and suited the text, making it more accessible.
Thanks to NetGalley, St. Martin’s Press and MacMillan Audio for the advanced copy of the audiobook. Three and a half stars, rounded up to four. All the opinions herein are my own.
Leave a Reply