annathepiper | Entries tagged with amelia peabody

After the mighty awesomeness that was He Shall Thunder in the Sky, any book Elizabeth Peters might write would have its work cut out for it. Thunder is so clear a culmination of the Ramses/Nefret love story that in many ways it serves as an admirable stopping point for the series. It would be somewhat unfair to Lord of the Silent and its immediately following book, Children of the Storm, to call them afterthoughts. But Silent definitely takes the Emerson saga into a new phase, one that loses something of the charm of many of the previous books while at the same time still having charm of its own to offer.

Like many of the later Amelia Peabody books, this one brings back characters we’ve seen before. This time around we got Margaret Minton, last seen in Book Five, Deeds of the Disturber, annoying the devil out of Kevin O’Connell. She is of course much older at this point, though in some ways not particularly more mature–because her entire plot arc involves her reacting to a surprise encounter with none other than Sethos himself. This being a series with a long tradition of pairing off side characters along with the main action, it’ll probably surprise no new readers to this series that at least on the part of Miss Minton, the encounter proved quite romantic. Nor will anyone who read Thunder be surprised that this book, in playing out Sethos’ reaction to the woman chasing him, continues the whole concept of reforming the erstwhile Master Criminal. It’s inevitable, really, given what Margaret’s previous appearance in the series had established about her resemblance to Amelia–and, of course, Sethos’ own attachment to same. It’s a nice touch on Peters’ part. (Though at the same time, I must admit to being vaguely disappointed, since he’s one of the liveliest characters in the entire cast, and the idea of reforming him is almost ridiculous. As Sethos himself snarkily observes!)

Meanwhile, fans of Ramses may find it almost disappointing that now that he’s won Nefret, the resolution of that romantic tension fundamentally changes the position of those two characters in the overall framework of the series. There’s good stuff here with the British government being desperate to pull Ramses back into intelligence work, and Ramses adamantly refusing with his family’s staunch support. Nor can I really speak against the value of exploring how the newly married younger Emersons’ relationship develops, given that similar exploration between Amelia and Emerson has of course defined the heart of this entire series. But Ramses is not his father, no matter how kindly the advice of his parents in marital matters might be meant, and so some readers may find that the passages where Ramses and Nefret explore their new married state drag a bit in comparison to the rest of the book.

There’s some fun here as well exploring the character of young Sennia, and the introduction of Jumana and her brother Jamil expands the cast a bit, providing good contrast between a young woman who wants to prove herself and her reprobate, lazy brother. And there’s still enough substance to Peters’ writing here that unlike later novels in the series, this one’s still a pretty solid read. Three stars.

Mirrored from annathepiper.org.

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Now we are TALKING.

He Shall Thunder in the Sky is perhaps my absolute favorite of the entire Amelia Peabody series–and as I’ve indicated in my reviews of several of the earlier books, it’s got some very strong contenders for my affections. It won’t have nearly as much meaning if you don’t read the series through from the beginning, but for readers who do, there is a great deal of reward to be had. There’s not only the culmination of the love story of Ramses and Nefret, there’s also the culmination of Ramses as a mature character and the equal of his parents, and a Big Reveal about the background of Sethos, the Master Criminal.

The book’s not a hundred percent perfect; I’ve got logistical quibbles with the Sethos part of the arc, for example. Odious cousin Percy, while credibly showing his true odious colors, is nonetheless not nearly as effective a villain as he should have been. Plus, I have a few “wait, what?” moments in regards to how Thunder ties back in with events in The Falcon at the Portal–specifically in revealing certain activities of Ramses’ and Nefret’s. I can’t say too much about that part since I don’t want to get into spoiler territory, but suffice to say that the details in question seemed a touch too melodramatic for even the Amelia Peabodies, which are at their height gems of melodrama! Ditto for the Big Reveal about Sethos.

But. I wave aside what quibbles I have with the story on the grounds of the sheer awesomeness that is Ramses in this book. He’s making a big noisy name for himself in Cairo as an avowed pacifist, refusing to participate in the ongoing bloody conflicts of World War I, and it’s getting him blackballed by everyone in Cairo society. It’s all a front, of course–because if you’ve been following the series up to this point, you know that Ramses has a stellar talent for disguise. So does the British government by this point in the series, and they’re making use of Ramses by having him do intelligence work. David’s in on it too, as the two friends put their lives on the line infiltrating a local cell of Egyptian nationalists so that Ramses can impersonate their leader. Not even his own parents know what’s going on, and once they realize the danger their son is putting himself in, they must do everything in their power to assist him. And to keep Nefret from finding out.

This being an Amelia Peabody, there is of course the obligatory preternaturally intelligent cat. This time around it’s Seshat, who’s a rival for her ancestress Bastet in how devoted she is to Ramses; he in turn is finally willing to acknowledge the potential awesomeness of other cats in the world. And of course we have the point of view shifting back and forth between Amelia and Ramses, which (aside from one weird choice of scene order at an early critical juncture) is wonderful stuff. Amelia’s relationship with her adult son is much different than her relationship with him as a boy, and one tender scene in particular they have is particularly aww-inducing.

Action scenes with Ramses here are among Peters’ most tense in any of her work, particularly at the end of the story. And, melodrama aside, the big climactic rescue scene in Thunder stands out for me as one of the most memorable of any of her books.

All in all, five stars.

Mirrored from annathepiper.org.

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

The first time I read through The Falcon at the Portal, book #11 of the Amelia Peabodies, I pretty much wanted to smack Nefret upside the head for what she pulls partway through the book. I am sorry to say that my impression on my recent re-read of her actions in this story have not much improved. Now that I am a writer myself and I’ve had a lot of time to get a lot more reading in besides, I better appreciate that a character I otherwise admire can do something deeply stupid. That said? What Nefret does in this book is still deeply stupid.

But let me back up. This is the third book involved in the overall four-book arc of the love story of Ramses and Nefret, a mini-arc in the overall stretch of the series. (I don’t count Guardian of the Horizon and A River in the Sky in this arc since they were inserted later, and don’t bring anything new to this particular storyline that the original four books don’t already establish.) We’ve jumped ahead a few more years since the events of The Ape Who Guards the Balance, and we start things off with a threat to the shiny new marriage of David and Lia: somebody is selling forgeries to antiquities dealers, and throwing around strong hints that they are David’s own creations. Very, very aware that David has not fallen back into the habits of his youth, Ramses and Nefret are determined to investigate even as the family prepares for their next season in Egypt.

Meanwhile, Ramses’ odious cousin Percy is making a massive nuisance of himself. He’s written a book based on what he claims are his own recent adventures in Egypt now that he’s joined the service–only problem is, he’s taking all kinds of dramatic liberties with the tale of how Ramses actually rescued him from being held hostage. Most of the family is suitably aghast at Percy’s distinctly purple prose, but only Ramses knows the truth of the hostage incident, and he isn’t telling. Not even Percy realizes what happened, and once he finds out, this sets off what’s actually a quite delicious little bit of revenge until Nefret wigs right out about it.

Feh. Aside from the Nefret bits this is a decent enough story, and for continuity’s sake one does want to read it, if nothing else to provide suitable context for the awesomeness that is to follow in He Shall Thunder in the Sky. My advice though is to read that one as soon as possible after this one. For this one, three stars.

Mirrored from annathepiper.org.

The most recent of the long-running Amelia Peabody series, A River in the Sky, is also unfortunately thus far the weakest for me in the series to date. Like Guardian of the Horizon, it’s one of the “lost journals” of the Emerson saga, going back and filling in gaps of time between previously written books. In this particular case, this one falls after Guardian of the Horizon and before The Falcon at the Portal. Unlike Guardian of the Horizon, however, it doesn’t really have much substance to it. Amelia, Emerson, and the rest of the main cast seem like cursory versions of themselves, and Peters’ writing here has the same issue that I’ve noticed in other recent books (the last few of this series, as well as Book Six of the Vicky Bliss books): to wit, her historical vivacity and spark just are not there.

I really wanted to like this one, too. It does have going for it the fact that it’s set in Palestine, which is a first for a series that beforehand spent the majority of its time in Egypt, with periodic stories in England. There are also several good dramatic scenes where Ramses and David are on the run from the Bad Guys Du Jour, and the obligatory set of colorful side characters. But by and large the Emersons as a group are in reactionary mode rather than really being active all throughout this plot, and there isn’t even much of an archaeological subplot going on to provide interest in the meantime, either.

Overall, I’m sad to react to this one mostly with ‘meh’. I’m enough of an Amelia fan at this point that I’ll keep reading the series for the sake of being a completist, but for everybody else, this one is definitely skippable. Two stars.

Mirrored from annathepiper.org.

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

By publishing order, Guardian of the Horizon is book #16 of the Amelia Peabody series. Chronologically, however, it is book #11, falling in time not too long after The Ape Who Guards the Balance. It’s one of two (as of the writing of this review) books that fill in the gap of time between Balance and the book after it, The Falcon at the Portal. And, if you’re a fan of Book #6, The Last Camel Died at Noon, it’s vital to note that this is also a direct followup to that book as it revisits the lost oasis city where the Emersons first discovered and rescued Nefret Forth.

The young prince Merasen comes to England to bring the Emersons the news that Tarek, the ruler they helped put into power ten years before, is gravely ill and needs their help. Naturally Amelia, Emerson, Ramses, and Nefret agree that they must go–and are in equal agreement that David must not, for he has only just finally won the betrothal of Walter and Evelyn’s child Lia and they all believe it would be cruel to part him from her. And for all that they’d just as soon leave Nefret behind as well, Ramses and his parents must grudgingly admit that Nefret’s medical skill makes her essential on the journey.

That journey proves just as perilous as the one the Emersons undertook before. This time around the story has a darker overtone, as assault and murder and betrayal dog them all the way to the Lost Oasis. Nor does it help matters that a treasure hunter and a young woman who seems rather forcibly in his care cross their paths, for Ramses finds himself uncomfortably drawn to the girl.

And that’s where this book falls over somewhat for me. We’ve just spent two books, Seeing a Large Cat and The Ape Who Guards the Balance, establishing that Ramses has been carrying a growing devotion to Nefret and has pretty much ever since he set eyes on her as a lad. In this very Lost Oasis, for that matter. I won’t go into details here for fear of spoilers for those who haven’t read this book; instead I’ll simply say that the strength of Ramses’ reaction to her is totally out of left field to me as a reader. The ending scene that tries to smooth things over and remind you who Ramses is really destined for doesn’t help, either.

I should also mention that Nefret herself spends regretfully little time doing anything useful in this plot. She becomes a MacGuffin here rather than a fully participating character, and behaves generally out of character as well.

It’s a shame, really, because aside from these two factors the book’s still fairly solid. The Emersons walk right into a trap of political intrigue that follows nicely out of the original adventure in this setting, and at least when Ramses and Nefret aren’t being out of character, there’s decent tension to be had. On my second read through I did appreciate those parts of the story more, which let me add another star to my original rating. Still, though, this is one of the weaker installments of the series. Three stars.

Mirrored from annathepiper.org.

The tenth Amelia Peabody novel, The Ape Who Guards the Balance, opens with one of my very favorite scenes in the entire series: Amelia barging out to participate in a suffragette rally in London, ready, willing, and even eager to get herself arrested for the cause of women’s rights. Never mind how she winds up having an inadvertant run-in with Sethos who’s planning to rob the very residence she and her fellow suffragettes are targeting for their protest; no, what really sells this whole sequence for me is the note-perfect reactions Emerson and Ramses and their butler Gargery have to the entire situation, up to and including Ramses coming along to lend his support, and Emerson and Gargery asserting their disbelief that any constable in the city is worthy of the task of arresting Amelia P. Emerson.

Really, it’s an excellent start to a very strong novel in the series overall. It’s not entirely perfect, mind you. There are stretches where even a diehard fan like me finds it a bit hard going. Stick with it though–and for the love of Amon-Ra, if you’re new to the series, do not start with this one. The death of a character much beloved of the Emersons takes place in this installment, and you really need to have been following the series from the beginning to really appreciate its impact on the family. Especially upon Amelia, since this incident affects her personally all throughout the subsequent books.

Ramses starts coming into his own for me as a fully adult character with this book, too. He’s had plenty of time to be a full-fledged character, sure, but only as of this book does he really start feeling like a grownup to me. And by ‘grownup’, I mean, ‘swoonable hero’. It helps a lot that as of here, Peters has a better handle on how she wants to present the “Manuscript H” sections of the story. This in turn gives Ramses a much more consistent voice, and goes a long way to establishing him as a romantic hero to rival his father. Four stars.

Mirrored from annathepiper.org.

I shall now send out props to mmegaera as well as irysangel, both of whom highly recommended the audiobook editions of the Amelia Peabody novels!

Having now listened to the audio of Book 1, I can say, oh my yes, Ms. Barbara Rosenblat does a delightful job. Her voice and accent are perfect for Amelia, very brisk and efficient, yet with a touch of refinement and humor; moreover, she’s pretty decent at varying her reading to account for other character voices. She was excellent at differentiating her Amelia Voice from her Evelyn Voice, and she wasn’t bad either with most of the male voices. It helped a lot as well that she was pretty good with accents, too, which was very helpful for French and Italian side characters in the story. I liked her rendition of Walter’s voice, which sounded suitably youthful yet still male, and her voice for Lucas had this foppish sort of almost-lisp to it that added a whole new dimension to that character for me.

About the only voice of hers at all that I took any issue with was Emerson’s–but on the other hand, given that Elizabeth Peters describes Emerson’s voice as a resounding bass, there’s only so much a woman reading the story is going to be able to do in order to approximate him. She did do a rather neat thing with Emerson’s lines, though: delivering them in a very gruff and raspy sort of tone which struck me as odd at first yet quickly grew on me. It might not necessarily be swoonable by modern standards per se, but it was absolutely in character for Emerson, so I have to give Ms. Rosenblat huge props for that.

It’s probably a lovely measure of how well I enjoyed her narration of the story that I plowed through it pretty much as non-stop as possible, on the way to work, through most of my work day that particular day, and on my way home as well. Highly, highly recommended for Amelia Peabody fans, and I’ll definitely be getting more of these. I can’t wait to hear how she reads for Ramses!

Final note: I bought the audiobook off of iTunes, and did notice multiple audiobook editions of several of the books in the series, done by different narrators. Barbara Rosenblat was the one I listened to, so doublecheck for her name if you go looking to buy one of these audiobooks yourself!

Mirrored from annathepiper.org.

irysangel asked me about this, so I thought I’d do a longer post on the topic of which books in the Amelia Peabodies are more skippable than others if you want to read the series but are finding it slow going.

Book 1, Crocodile on the Sandbank. Not optional. After all, it’s how Amelia and Emerson meet. ;)

Book 2, The Curse of the Pharaohs, and Book 3, The Mummy Case – Fairly skippable. Ramses is still very young at this point and not as actively participating in the plots.

Book 4, Lion in the Valley – Not skippable just on the grounds that this one introduces Sethos, although be warned that the initial stretches of the book are pretty slow going.

Book 5, The Deeds of the Disturber – I have great love for this one as I mentioned in last night’s review post, but if I absolutely had to make the call, and you’re trying to condense your reading down to the most important books in the series, you could skip this one. But I’d encourage you not to!

Book 6, The Last Camel Died at Noon – Critical. Introduces Nefret.

Book 7, The Snake, the Crocodile, and the Dog – Skippable, despite the fact that it’s an amnesia plot and I’m a sucker for those. It’s a fairly self-contained story involving Amelia and Emerson, since Ramses and Nefret are left behind in England. Nice callbacks to the early days of their relationship, but you won’t miss anything major if you skip it.

Book 8, The Hippopotamus Pool – The main point of interest for this one is that this is the book that introduces the last major critical character to come into play, and that’s David. However, the plot is mostly skippable. I didn’t even remember it, or that it’s the one where David shows up, until my recent re-read.

Books 9-12, Seeing a Large Cat, The Ape Who Guards the Balance, The Falcon at the Portal, and He Shall Thunder in the Sky, form an internal quartet of sorts as they are the books that form the major arc of Ramses and Nefret. Strongly recommend that you do NOT skip any of these. They’re also the ones where Peters starts writing quite a bit of the story from Ramses’ point of view, as well as putting in occasional letters written from Nefret’s POV.

Be warned that Book 11, The Falcon at the Portal, has things in it that annoyed the hell out of me on my first read of the book and which still annoyed me on my recent re-read. Be warned also that the ebook version I read of this on my nook was very badly done; there were typos all over the place, missing words and broken formatting, and in several places the name Selim was read as Scum, and the word Sitt was shown as Sill. I’m seriously wondering if this ebook was put together as a bad OCR job.

That said, read it anyway (in non-ebook form unless there are better ebook versions than the one I have), as there is critical stuff in there that sets up the book that comes after, He Shall Thunder in the Sky, which more than made up for Falcon‘s transgressions. ;) Note also that Book 12 has a Major Reveal involving Sethos as well, another reason that this book is arguably the high point of the series. Do not skip Book 12 under any circumstances!

After Book 12, though, things get fairly optional. (I have review posts to come for these.) It is important to note that two of the later books actually take place chronologically earlier in the series–and in fact fall right between The Ape Who Guards the Balance and The Falcon at the Portal. These are Book 16, Guardian of the Horizon, and the most recent one, Book 19, A River in the Sky. In my opinion both of these are fairly skippable since they’re just going in and filling in missing time, and don’t really bring anything new to the overall saga of the Emersons.

I’ve only read books 13, 14, 15, 17, and 18 one time each and barely remember anything about them, aside from how you get new child characters that come in as the next generation of the Emersons. Books 13-15 were solid enough as I recall, and I remember being charmed by book 15. However, it was round about book 17 that I found that Peters’ writing was starting to feel pretty perfunctory, without the same vivacity and spark that her earlier works had shown. (This may just be a matter of Peters’ age; she’s in her 80′s now and she showed the same problem with Book 6 of the Vicky Bliss series too.)

So if you’re in the mood to keep going after Book 12, Books 13-15 I think go more into depth with Ramses doing intelligence work during World War I, and Book 15 is a good stopping point for that. But 17 and 18 were both fairly skippable.

Any questions? :)

Mirrored from annathepiper.org.

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

You really need to point at Book 6 of the Amelia Peabodies, The Last Camel Died at Noon, as one of the pivotal books of the series–because it’s here that arguably the most important character in the entire cast (aside from, of course, the Emersons themselves) is introduced. The Last Camel Died at Noon is the book that introduces Nefret, and it’s the tale of how the Emersons discover and rescue her from a lost civilization deep in the Sudan.

It’s this book as well where Peters starts throwing around references to H. Rider Haggard, and in particular, King Solomon’s Mines. Amelia harks back a lot to Haggard’s writing as she tells the reader all about what proves to be one of the Emersons’ most exotic adventures ever. Word comes to them that the explorer Willoughby Forth, long presumed to have been lost in the desert along with his young wife, may not actually have died–and that, moreover, the lost oasis they were seeking might actually exist. The Emersons are begged by Forth’s father and cousin to go in search of proof of his eventual fate; the Emersons being who they are, they agree. But the journey is deeply perilous, and after the deaths of their camels, abandonment by their men, and the threat of illness and thirst and heatstroke, they are rescued by the people of the very civilization Forth had set out to locate.

What happens when they get there–and how Nefret comes into it–I won’t say because that’d be hugely spoilerrific. Suffice to say that there is political and social intrigue, treachery from several quarters, and Amelia getting the biggest shock of her life when Ramses encounters someone who can actually make him shut up. Five stars.

Mirrored from annathepiper.org.

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

In a series that’s famous for being primarily set in Egypt, The Deeds of the Disturber, Book 5 of the Amelia Peabodies, is quite distinctive in that it’s set in England during the off-season, when the Emerson family is between digs. It also has the good fortune of being my very favorite book involving Ramses as a child. Sure, that boy’s formidable even in Books 3 and 4, but here, put up against the odious Percy and Violet, the children of Amelia’s brother James, Ramses gets his first real stretch of character development.

You’d think that the Emersons being at home means they’d get a break from their detectival adventures, but you’d be wrong. There’s a new exhibit with a mummy at the British Museum, and of course there are Mysterious Persons showing up in ancient Egyptian garb causing disturbances at the exhibit. Worse yet, people have started to die at the museum, and rumors are beginning to fly about a curse. Cue the Emersons, even though Emerson himself is frantically trying to finish a manuscript. And even though Amelia has to juggle managing not only her husband and son, but also her niece and nephew, who have been unceremoniously thrust upon her by her brother. The redoubtable Amelia is hopeful that exposure to other children, “normal” children, might be good for Ramses–but it should surprise no reader of the series that things go very, very badly. Fights break out, accusations are hurled, and as is so often the case with young Master Ramses, things wind up on fire.

The Young Lovers Du Jour are a refreshing change of pace–none other than Kevin O’Connell, the Emersons’ simultaneously most liked and most hated reporter, and his rival, Miss Minton, who’ll stop at nothing to scoop him on the story of the curse at the museum. And it’s fun to see characters here that we don’t normally get to see in an Amelia Peabody novel, such as the Emersons’ England-based servants, all of whom take an inordinate amount of interest in the family affairs (Gargery, the butler, is Awesome). Emerson gets his obligatory Scenes of Being Heroically Wounded, not once but twice even, and there is even a mysterious woman from his past cropping up and giving Amelia cause for Grave Concern. Coming as we are off of Book 4, this is fun tension, given that the tables are now turned and Amelia has to have her own battles with doubt.

But really, read this for the excellent Ramses mileage! And keep an eye on that kid Percy, because we will be seeing him again! Five stars.

Mirrored from annathepiper.org.

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

If you pick and choose only a selection of the Amelia Peabody books to read, one of your choices must indisputably be Lion in the Valley, book 4 of the series. This introduces one of the most critical recurring characters to show up all throughout the books: as Amelia herself likes to call him, that genius of crime, the Master Criminal, Sethos.

Thanks to events of the previous book, The Mummy Case, Emerson has secured permission to dig at the Black Pyramid in Dahshur. But as is always the case with the Emersons, their efforts are soon enough interrupted. Someone attempts to kidnap Ramses–and the man who helps rescue him proves to be an opium-addicted Englishman. Moreover, there’s a young woman on the run from an accusation of murder, and anyone who’s read any other book of the series should be able to quickly guess that there’s backstory with these two side characters, too.

But really, the main interest of this installment is Sethos, particularly when his romantic interest in Amelia comes to light. Look for the big ending, when the Master Criminal gets his shot at his main goal. Which is to say, Amelia herself. This’ll set up a lot of lovely interaction for later installments, as well as occasional fun tension between Amelia and Emerson. Also, Sethos himself is a fabulous anti-hero, sure to appeal to any fan of rakish thieves and gentleman rogues. Four stars.

Mirrored from annathepiper.org.

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Once you get into Book 3 of the Amelia Peabody series, The Mummy Case, you start picking up steam for the long haul of the bulk of all these books. Hands down, the best aspect of it is that Amelia and Emerson’s young son Ramses joins them for the first time in Egypt, and therefore starts taking his place as a primary character in the family’s adventures. Much like with Book 2, though, aside from Ramses starting to become his catastrophically precocious self, the rest of this story doesn’t stand out as much for me plot-wise. There’s certainly plenty of intrigue surrounding the murder of an antiquities dealer and the disappearance and reappearance of a mummy case, as well as the usual colorful cast of characters that populates any Amelia Peabody adventure.

What really sells this one for me, though, is all the character interaction–particularly with Ramses. He’s still too twee as of this book, what with Peters still writing out all his dialogue with a lisp–but he starts exhibiting the tendencies that make him quite the little holy terror for his parents to raise. The bit with the lion in this book, in particular, is gold. I also absolutely adore that Ramses, in emulation of his parents, carries out his own tiny excavation that turns out to be quite a bit more important than either of his parents expect. Four stars.

Mirrored from annathepiper.org.

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

After the awesomeness that is Crocodile on the Sandbank, the mighty opening round of the Amelia Peabody series, a reader might wonder how Elizabeth Peters could possibly have packed more awesome into these books. The answer: by the introduction of Amelia and Emerson’s son, the “catastrophically precocious” Walter Peabody Emerson, better known by his nickname of Ramses.

The opening of this book remains one of my favorite bits in the entire series. It’s four years after the events of Book 1, and Amelia and Emerson have been staying at home in England raising their small son rather than risking him by a return to Egypt. In a quick little sequence of anecdotes, Amelia provides a delightful little portrait of exactly what this kid is like, from how he started to talk at a very early age to how he delighted in his father reading grisly accounts of mummies to him, and most of all in digging up bones out of the garden. He’s a bit too twee at this early age, though, as his dialogue is written out with some baby pronunication that makes him a bit hard to read. I was cheerfully willing to overlook that though for the giggle factor of young Ramses interrupting a tea party his mother is having–by bringing Amelia a particularly filthy femur, and horrifying all the other women present. Muaha.

Sadly, Ramses is not actually much in this book. The main gist of the plot involves one Lady Baskerville coming to beg Emerson for assistance, for her husband, himself a well-known excavator, has died in the middle of digging into a new tomb. Lady Baskerville wants Emerson to continue the job–and if at all possible, to investigate the mystery of her husband’s death and other strange circumstances that have surrounded their entire dig. And it’s certainly an entertaining mystery, notable for setting up a lot of the standard elements of an Amelia Peabody book: murder, a budding young romance, and someone (or multiple someones) being attracted passionately to Emerson! One other plot element is introduced here as well that will resonate through several of the following novels: the Emersons’ acqusition of the cat Bastet.

So even though the main plot doesn’t stand out for me as much as with the rest of the series, there are still a whole bunch of important things introduced here that set up books to come. For this one, four stars.

Mirrored from annathepiper.org.

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

One of my all-time favorite authors is Elizabeth Peters, a.k.a. Barbara Michaels–and of her many, many works, my all-time favorite hands down is the Amelia Peabody series. Which starts off with a mighty roar in Crocodile on the Sandbank, a book I can go back to again and again. And do!

For those of you unfamiliar with the series, they’re the adventures of a husband and wife team of Egyptologists, set in the late 1800′s to early 1900′s. Book 1 introduces spinster Amelia Peabody, who has set out to tour Egypt following the death of her father and her inheritance of a quite credible fortune from him. During her travels, she takes lovely young Evelyn Forbes under her wing, and the two of them join forces to see the great sites of Egypt.

Cue introduction to the Emerson brothers, Walter and Radcliffe–though the latter detests his given name, and from this book and all throughout the series, he is known to the reader as simply Emerson. Walter’s a gentle and charming fellow, in direct contrast to his obstreperous brother. It should be no surprise to anyone that Evelyn takes to Walter, while Amelia herself clashes with Emerson. And this, my children, lays down the beginning of a long and lively relationship.

Amelia and Emerson are absolutely stunning together. Emerson is bullheaded, tactless, and rude, and has no patience whatsoever for interfering females–while Amelia will have absolutely none of this nonsense, and gives Emerson back every bit as good as he puts forth. That their relationship really gets underway when she has to nurse him out of severe illness should not be taken as anything so plebian as the standard “heroine must nurse hero back to health” romance trope–because Peters plays it splendidly.

As if this weren’t enough (and it’s quite a bit of awesome), there is of course a mystery to solve. Not long after Amelia and Evelyn take up with the Emersons, the dig site at which they’re working is visited by nothing less than what seems to be an ambulatory mummy. There’s murder, assault, and shady suitors. I love it all. I love it all so much. (heart)

The story’s written in first person, with the schtick that it’s the first of Amelia’s many journals, written during her lifetime. Peters gives her a very florid style (Amelia is quite fond of repeatedly mentioning Emerson’s “sapphirine” eyes, for example), but given that Peters is deliberately paying homage to H.R. Haggard and similar authors, it’s very much in theme for what she’s doing. So stick with it, and look out to the end for the inevitable proposal of marriage scene, which ranks as one of my favorite marriage proposals in a novel ever.

And trust me, it’s so very much not a spoiler that Amelia and Emerson get married. In fact, I adore that they go straight to getting married, and clear the way for the length of the series to focus on their married life and their adventures together. Don’t ever let anybody tell you that you can’t base a series on a married couple, folks–because Amelia and her beloved Emerson say otherwise. And you don’t want to argue with a woman with a parasol! Five stars.

Mirrored from annathepiper.org.