Is it possible for a book to be bipolar? Everything was just so extreme. The characters, the emotions the author attempted to convey, everything. This worked in the beginning, I’ll admit, but after a while it started to wear on me.
Maybe it’s because I got the flu about a quarter of the way through this book, but the woe-is-me quotient was way too high. It just seemed as if Ms. Baker kept laying it on and on and on.
And the characters were so stereotypical they were cartoonish, especially Robert Morgan and Serena Jane. There were times when I half expected dear old Bob Bob to wriggle is eyebrows like a villain in a bad silent movie.
The only truly interesting part of the book came when Truly experienced her “Eureka!” moment about Tabby’s spellbook. Even that didn’t entirely save this book from mediocrity.
I know I’m in the minority, here, but I can’t make myself recommend this book unless you like bad soap operas or those movies where the villain ties the heroine to the train tracks.
Rating: 3.75 out of 5 stars
Good morning, y’all, on this rainy November day. My niece sent us lots of gorgeous Halloween pics for me to play with. However, my sister has neglected to send me any of Brady in his teddy bear costume. 
Grrrrr!
Above: The Demland family performing pumpkin surgery. The kit I used is October 31st from Black Cherry Scraps, and the font is Death Font. You can get it at dafont.com.
Below: Kayleebug the Ladybug. I used another Black Cherry kit for this layout: Spring Blooms. The layout was created using Template 17 from Les Digis de Steph and the font A Bug’s Life by Filmhimmel. You can download it at dafont.com.
Above: Sir Daniel brandishing his sword. In creating this layout, I modified Steph’s Template 12. I also used several fonts. The writing is Knight’s Quest by Gemfonts. In creating the shields, I used Heraldic by Lord Kyl MacKay and Christian Crosses by Ben McGehee. The dragon comes from a mask I got at Jumbo PSP.
Below: Breeanna, Belle of the Desert, showing off her Southern blood in the Southwest this Halloween. Just look at her close up! That look is so Scarlet O’Hara. Anyway. . . The font I used is Lainie Day by Soft Horizons. You can get it here.
The Murder of King Tut: The Plot to Kill the Child King by James Patterson and Martin Durgard
Okay, first, I might have enjoyed this book more if I hadn’t already known the history. The lack of any kind of suspense made this a rather boring read. Just interesting enough to keep me turning the pages. Not to mention that after reading Michelle Moran’s Nefertiti a couple of years ago, Patterson’s piecing together of the evidence seemed more than a little strange.
One thing that irritated me about this book was names. During the Amarna Period, Tut’s name was Tutankhaten, not Tutankhamun. Same with the queen. After the removal from Amarna, the -aten at the end of her name was changed to -amun.
Also, there is a remark made or a thought of Ankhesenaten about her sisters marrying foreigners. Huh? No daughter of Pharoah during the New Kingdom would have married a foreigner. The Hittites and the Mitanni proposed such matches, but they were rebuffed.
And what happened to Meritaten? The daughter of Nefertiti and Akhenaten who was Smenkhare’s consort. She is never mentioned.
For those of you who are interested in what happened from the point of view of the Hittites, here is a translation of a document known as the Deeds of Suppiluliuma. You have to scroll down to the Seventh Tablet.
If you are unfamiliar with the history of the end of 18th Dynasty, you may find this a more interesting read than I did.
Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars
First of all, I’m not a huge fan of Roman history (though I loved McCullough’s Masters of Rome series), especially that of the Empire. However, since I’ve loved Moran’s other two books, I was willing to give this one a try. It was actually pretty good and had me in tears on a few occasions.
Second, lemme just give a big “duh!” to the identity of the Red Eagle.
A few things irritated me with this book, though:
- No one would have been surprised that a Ptolemy would have prefered members of their own sex, least of all another Ptolemy. The Hellenic world was filled with homosexual rulers. Look at Cleopatra’s father, at least one of her uncles, and both of her brothers.
- What was all that crap about women in Egypt being allowed to marry for love? Alexander Helios was already betrothed to someone at the time the novel starts. The fact that Selene was not probably means that she was intended to marry Caesarion.
- Caesar women seem to have been the exception to Roman women remarrying rule. Look at the Dictator’s mother, Aurelia, and his aunt, Julia. Neither one of them remarried. And how about Cornelia, Mother of the Gracchi?
Interestingly, I’ve never read anything good about Livia Drusilla. She seems to have been universally hated by everyone except Augustus. Though, come to think of it, it’s rare to read anything nice about any Roman Empress. They all appear to have been vindictive, homicidal, vipers married to insane megalomaniacs. 
Sorry, I digress . . .
I’ve found Cleopatra’s Daughter to be a fascinating read.
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
Is it just me, or does a person’s IQ immediately drop about 20 points upon contracting the flu? Seriously. Last week, I was reading The Little Giant of Aberdeen County and enjoying it very much. Then, I got the flu. I swear I must have read the same page three or four times and still have no idea what it actually said. So, I put it aside and re-read a couple of Suzanne Brockmann’s Troubleshooters books, instead.
- The Women by T. C. Boyle – 4.5
- The Mountains of Saint Francis: Discovering the Geologic Events that Shaped Our Earth by Walter Alvarez – unfinished due to extreme boredom
- In the Company of the Courtesan by Sarah Dunant – 4.5
- Once and Always by Judith McNaught – 3
- Hot Pursuit by Suzanne Brockmann (reread)
- Gone Too Far by Suzanne Brockmann (reread)
I’m still not sure if I’ve read Once and Always before. Most of the deja vu vibe I kept getting was for the story, not the characters.
I’m almost done with the flu, or it’s almost done with me , so I’ll continue The Little Giant where I left off later today or tomorrow.
It is 1527 and the Emperor’s army is at the gates of Rome, unpaid and eager for plunder. The Eternal City is about to be sacked and the Pope imprisoned, much to the dismay of Henry VIII of England. However, the plight of England’s king is the last thing on the mind of Bucino, the eyes through which we see this tale. He is a dwarf in the service of a courtesan.
After suffering the greed of the Spanish and the righteous cruelty of the Germans, Bucino and his mistress flee to her native city: Venice. Though Rome is sore beleaguered, Venice is the jewel of Italy, rising in cosmopolitan glory from the waters of the Adriatic. Compared to the overt sins of Rome, Venice preserves a veneer of luxurious austerity. And it is a veneer. Courtesans actually go to Mass in order to gain the attention of potential new clients!
Dunant brings Renaissance Venice to brilliant, vivid life. The isolation of the Ghetto, the mostly amicable relations with the Ottoman Empire, and the surprisingly lenient treatment of those charged with witchcraft. The squalor of the poor and the understated opulence of the rich.
One thing I found of particular interest was the ruby. In any other place in Europe, Bucino would have gotten almost as much as the woman.
I find that I liked In the Company of the Courtesan more than I did The Birth of Venus. It is an enjoyable escape into the glories of Renaissance Venice.
Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars
Okay, I just got around to watching this, thanks to the magic of the DVR, and I’m disappointed. They obviously didn’t do their homework.
I mean, they did the whole battle between Red Thor and White Christ wonderfully. My riff is with the Midgard Snake. The storm god versus the serpent is a common motif in mythology. As they mentioned, you have Indra and Zeus (later Apollo) battling snakes. However, they overlooked the fact that Vedic, Greek, and Norse cultures were all Indo-European. The stories are so similar because they evolved from the same exact legend. Even the Hittites had a version of it. Same thing with the World Tree, though the kind of tree changed from culture to culture, depending on what grew in the area they came to inhabit.
Snake and tree stories, I know, are older than any of these, and are common to cultures not Indo-European, the Marduk and Tiamat myth from Babylon, for example, but the versions mentioned by the so called scholars on this program were. The Maya sea monster legend being the exception.
I wonder if there will be a second season of this show? And what myths and legends they will explore. It seems to me, sense they discussed Beowulf, there should be a couple of episodes on Arthur. The Founding of Rome with the whole Romulus and Remus story and the Rape of the Sabine Women. The cult of Mithras. Isis, Osiris, and Horus.
By the way, I noticed this in the Beowulf episode and it continued to irritate me in this one, but isn’t Odin supposed to have only one eye? I thought he sacrificed the other one for wisdom.
