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A review by verityw
The Painted Queen by Elizabeth Peters, Joan Hess
3.0
ETA in 2021: Having spent the last 18 months listening to the audiobooks and rereading the series (I've been through all of the audiobooks available in the UK at least twice, and some of the books again on top of that) I came back to this as I'm rereading the series in chronological order. And I liked it a lot less than the first time and knocked a star off it, and debated taking more. Having spent all that time listening to the Emersons now (whereas in 2018 it was some time since I had read a book in the series) I noticed all the problems with this much more - the dialogue isn't write, there are continuity and factual errors and none of the characters act like themselves. It actually infuriated me a little - that it could have been a "proper" book if only Elizabeth Peters hadn't died, but instead we got a not very good approximation. And I know that makes me sound mean. Hey ho.
2018 review
I can't believe this is the last one. I mean, I know it is, and it makes sense that it would be, and I've saved it for ages because it is the last one, but I'm still sad that there will be no new Amelia and Emerson adventures.
But this is not a bad way to go out. It's not my favourite in the series - partly because of where it falls in the chronology - but it's a fairly typical (for them) season in Egypt with the Peabody Emersons - there's a murder, there are missing antiquities, Emerson is getting through shirts at a rate of knots, Sethos is loitering and the gang aren't happy with the site they've been allotted. More of a whimper than a bang - but given it was filling in a gap (and had to not have anything so eventful that we would have heard of it again in the later books!) that's not a surprise. I need to go back and reread some of these again - having read this in the midst of the Ramses Nefret estrangement, I could do with reading the one with some resolution to that!
2018 review
I can't believe this is the last one. I mean, I know it is, and it makes sense that it would be, and I've saved it for ages because it is the last one, but I'm still sad that there will be no new Amelia and Emerson adventures.
But this is not a bad way to go out. It's not my favourite in the series - partly because of where it falls in the chronology - but it's a fairly typical (for them) season in Egypt with the Peabody Emersons - there's a murder, there are missing antiquities, Emerson is getting through shirts at a rate of knots, Sethos is loitering and the gang aren't happy with the site they've been allotted. More of a whimper than a bang - but given it was filling in a gap (and had to not have anything so eventful that we would have heard of it again in the later books!) that's not a surprise. I need to go back and reread some of these again - having read this in the midst of the Ramses Nefret estrangement, I could do with reading the one with some resolution to that!