Name: Sphinx's Princess
ISBN: 9780375856549

Esther M. Friesner

Although she is a dutiful daughter, Nefertiti's dancing abilities, remarkable beauty, and intelligence garner attention near and far, so much so that her family is summoned to the Egyptian royal court, where Nefertiti becomes a pawn in the power play of her scheming aunt, Queen Tiye.

Sphinx's Princess

jess

[review written 2013]

mmkay i just finished sphinx’s princess. i read the first book of ester friesner’s series about helen of troy when i was like, 12 (and now i see that there are eight books about historical/mythical princesses wow cool). and from what i remember it was very similar

like, it started out with nefertiti as a child. (nefertiti is very cool.) and i liked it a lot, it was a good book. but it was very slow until the last few chapters until it picked up. nefertiti’s a good character. she’s likable. and i enjoyed her up until she started going on dreamily about thutmose. 

like, where did that come from. literally, where. one second nefertiti hated thutmose and the next she was all dreamy about him, thinking about kissing him. i did not sign up this. it’s even lampshaded that it was stupid and pointed out as a character flaw in nefertiti. i’m still not fond of that decision but i’ll have to wait until i read the next book. 

nava was a good character, and i liked her the most, along with sitamun. most of the others weren’t that remarkable. i’m still a little confused with how old they all are. i think nefertiti’s sixteen? it’s hard when you’re trying to write something spanning years; when i read the song of achilles i was a bit confused about their ages there as well. 

it was a pretty good book though and leaves me wanting to read the sequel, which luckily i have. i liked the ending. the rest of the book was rather slow and didn’t grasp my attention as much as it could have.