My very first Sunday Salon! And, oddly, one of my lightest reading weeks in well, weeks. I finished Nefertiti by Michelle Moran and started Fallen by Lauren Kate. I hope to finish Fallen before the end of the day today.

Since I don’t have much to talk about, I thought I’d do two mini-reviews.

Nefertiti

Nefertiti — With this book, I’ve now read all of Michelle Moran’s books. She’s become one of my new favorite authors and I’m looking forward to her next book already. I read somewhere that it takes place in 16th or 17th Century France and I’m sure she’ll do it justice. As a small side note, that’s one of my favorite historical periods to read about. I don’t really know why, it just is. Anyway, in Nefertiti, she takes us to 1351 BCE Egypt. The Pharaoh Amunhotep IV, soon to be Akhenaten, takes power when his brother dies. His mother, Queen Tiye, wants him to marry a strong woman who will be able to control him. She picks Nefertiti. Nefertiti is cunning, cruel, sweet, loving, manipulative, and so ambitious that she drips with it. Of course she shows none of this to the Queen mother and when the marriage is arranged, her family becomes one of the most powerful in Egypt. Soon, Nefertiti and Akhenaten begin building their dream city, Amarna, in the desert and their empire, built on the backs of soldiers and gold from outlawed temples, begins to crumble around them. The story is told from Nefertiti’s sister’s point of view, Mutnodjmet, who is a wonderfully sweet loving person who just wants to be alone with her garden but, unfortunately, her sister won’t allow her that kind of peace. I enjoyed this book and do recommend it. Moran has a way of creating characters that are really engaging and she manages to pull you into the story before you even know it.

Fallen

Fallen — I still have about 75 pages to go so here’s the short re-cap. Luce is involved in the unexplained death of a classmate at her boarding school. She doesn’t remember what happened and can’t explain the fire that killed him and almost took her life. A judge orders her to reform school, the Sword & Cross, and the day she checks in she’s drawn to one student, Daniel. He isn’t nice to her, doesn’t want anything to do with her, and she can’t leave him alone or get him out of her head. And then there are the shadows. Medication and psychiatrists have not been able to rid her of these sightings and now they are coming even closer and becoming more daring, absolutely terrifying her. It started out really slow for me but around the middle of the book, it began to pick up and now I’m looking forward to the ending. This is the first in a series and I think I’ll probably read the others as well.

OK, now that I’ve written more than I’ve read all week, I’m calling that an end to my first Sunday Salon.