Book Review: The Pharaoh's Daughter

The Pharaoh's Daughter 

by 

Mesu Andrews 

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"You will be called Anippe, 

daughter of the Nile. Do you like it?"

Without waiting for a reply, she pulls me into her squishy, round tummy for a hug.

I'm trying not to cry. Pharaoh's daughters don't cry . . .

When we make our way down the tiled hall, I try to stop at Ummi Kiya's chamber. I know her spirit has flown yet I long for one more moment. Amenia pushes me past so I keep walking and don't look back.

Like the waters of the Nile, I will flow.

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Anippe has grown up in the shadows of Egypt's good god Pharaoh, aware that Anubis, god of the afterlife, may take her or her siblings at any moment. She watched him snatch her mother and infant brother during childbirth, a moment that awakened in her a terrible dread of ever bearing a child. Now she is to become the bride of Sebak, the kind but quick-tempered captain of Pharaoh Tut's army. In order to provide Sebak the heir he deserves and yet protect herself from the underworld gods, Anippe must launch a series of deceptions, even involving the Hebrew midwives---women ordered by Tut to drown the sons of their own people in the Nile.

When she finds a baby floating in a basket on the great river, Anippe believes Egypt's gods have answered her pleas, entrenching her more deeply in deception and placing her and her son, Mehy, whom handmaiden Miriam calls Moses, in mortal danger.

As bloodshed and savage politics shift the balance of power in Egypt, the gods reveal their fickle natures and Anippe wonders if her son, a boy of Hebrew blood, could one day become king. Or does the god of her Hebrew servants, the one they call El Shaddai, have a different plan for them all?

This book is easily one of the best I've read in a long time! It's fast paced and compelling, and once you start reading it, you won't want to put it down! I sat up late several nights in a row until finishing it last night. It's so full of many different things---love, war, suspense, drama, joy, sadness . . . everything a book needs to be truly good! This was the first book I've read by Mesu Andrew's and I look forward to reading the next book in the series, the story of Miriam! I highly recommend this book and suggest you get your hands on it as soon as possible! My only complaint would be that I felt at times the characters acted and talked a little too modern, and some of the descriptions had a few modern phrases or words thrown in as well. But other than that, a stupendous read! A five star rating from me. 

I received this book for free from Water Brooke Press in exchange for my honest review.