This review contains affiliate links, which earn me a small commission when you click and purchase, at no extra cost to you. Thank you for supporting my small business and allowing me to continue providing you a reliable resource for clean book ratings.
In 1936, Charlotte Cross is just an 18-year-old student who is offered the opportunity to work with an archaeological dig in Egypt. She gets to be part of an exciting find, and she falls in love with a fellow Egyptologist. But tragedy leaves her heartbroken and back in her home in New York City.
In 1978, Charlotte is working at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, having lived a quiet life as an associate curator of the museum’s Egyptian art department. Though she loves what she does, she’s never returned to Egypt and expects that she never will.
Meanwhile, the museum is getting ready for the Met Gala, presided over by the legendary Diana Vreeland. Annie Jenkins is 18 years old and loves to visit the museum, particularly a piece of art from ancient Egypt. Her life with her down-and-out former-model mother isn’t ideal, but the museum is a bright spot. Thanks to a series of occurrences, Annie ends up as an assistant to Diana Vreeland, lending her a valuable hand just before the Gala.
For her part, though she is right on the scene, Charlotte cares little for the annual fashion event. She is looking forward to finally publishing her findings about a little-recognized female pharaoh. But when, during the Met Gala, a thief takes a valuable artifact related to this female pharaoh, both Annie and Charlotte are questioned. They end up working together to figure out where the artifact went and how Charlotte’s research is involved.
And Charlotte makes a spur-of-the-moment decision to do what she’d never expected: return to Egypt after 40 years.
Having read several books set in Egypt and related to its ancient history, such as Women in the Valley of the Kings, I had a nice background for this book. Fiona Davis writes in her author’s note at the end of The Stolen Queen that she based Charlotte on Christiane Desroches-Noblecourt, a famous French archeologist. And she used the pharaoh Hatshepsut as the inspiration for the female pharaoh she wrote about here. It was interesting to see how she wove mystery and history together in this novel. The story held my interest, and I felt deeply for both Charlotte and Annie.
I didn’t love The Stolen Queen; sometimes I could kind of just “see the bones” of the story, somehow, if that makes sense. Davis’s characters say things that are clearly drawn from her research and meant to inform readers, but it seems too obvious. So while I felt the writing wasn’t always top-notch, the book was mostly engaging and informative. And clean, so that is a great bonus.
Rated: Mild. Profanity includes a few uses of mild language and a dozen instances of the name of Deity in vain. Sexual content includes kissing and “closed-door” intimacy. Violence includes a few scenes in which a man physically attacks some women and runs off, as well as a reference to a man being shot and killed.
Click here to purchase your copy of The Stolen Queen on Amazon.
