I just finished in close succession the two books, "Nefertiti" and "The Heretic Queen" by Michelle Moran. They were both interesting books about Egyptian queens of long, long ago. Since there really isn't a lot of information about the characters historically, Moran gives us her best guess. I don't have a problem with that. Her fiction could have been the truth; records from 1350 BC Egypt are sketchy. Those dimn grave robbers!
However, there is one problem. The first book is obviously about Nefertiti and told by her sister. The latter is about Nefertiti's niece, Nefertari. The similarity between their names actually symbolizes the problem: the books are very like each other, almost too much.
Perhaps if I had read them more than a few weeks apart, I would feel differently. In terms of the characters, the romance and the plot, it felt very similar to the first one. Of course, it was the same time period, the same location and had a few of the same characters. I guessed I wanted a different viewpoint on the Egyptian scene than one from royalty. At some points of her life, Nefertari, like Nefertiti, were both outcasts and beloved queens. The plots seemed similar and now, thinking back, I can't seem to distinguish the two. That's not a great sign.
However, I liked that they were similar in a certain way, and I'm sure other Moran readers feel the same way. What adventure and romance they got out of the first book, they'll get out of the second. I wonder if she was pressed to write a very similar novel to please her fans. Or perhaps this is just the way she writes.
In any case, I had a similar problem when I wrote my sequel, "Torch". I wanted to make it similar to the first book to please my readers, but then again, I wanted to do something different. Thus, I sympathize with Moran. (And I really enjoyed her books by appreciating them as a get-away-from-reality and a what-if-I-were-queen books.) I would just recommend reading her books a few months apart to fully appreciate them.
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