Name: The Woman who Would be King
ISBN: 9780307956767

Kara Cooney

A portrait of the longest-reigning woman pharaoh in Ancient Egypt draws on surviving artifacts to consider her unprecedented rise, her achievements and why most of her monuments were destroyed after her death. 40,000 first printing.

The Woman who Would be King

It is always hard to rate nonfiction books. I think it was well written and seemed to have a lot of good research. The conditions of life in Egypt at the time were covered well, I hadn't thought about how bad people may have had it before this. 

Definitely worth the read if you want to explore the life of the Queen and don't have a lot of background knowledge. If you do have a lot of knowledge going in, I'm not sure if it dives deeper than you already know.

Andrea McGuffey

Hatshepsut - the daughter of a general who usurped Egypt's throne - was born into a privileged position in the royal household, and she was expected to bear the sons who would legitimize the reign of her father's family. Her failure to produce a male heir was ultimately the twist of fate that paved the way for her improbable rule as a cross-dressing king. At just over twenty, Hatshepsut ascended to the rank of pharaoh in an elaborate coronation ceremony that set the tone for her spectacular reign as co-regent with Thutmose III, the infant king whose mother she out-maneuvered for a seat on the throne. A master strategist, Hatshepsut successfully negotiated a path from the royal nursery to the very pinnacle of authority, and her reign saw one of Ancient Egypt's most prolific building periods.

The Woman who Would be King

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