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Maia is a young woman living with her Aunt Nebet and her Uncle Hay after the death of her parents. In all truth she is little more than a glorified servant. The only thing she has worth anything in her life are the clandestine sessions she shares with her brother, Seti, in which he teaches her the hieroglyphs she would learn if she were training like him to be a scribe. Maia wants to be a scribe more than anything, for it is an important position in Egyptian society and puts a person in a favored place among the rulers. Under the current reign of Hathshepsut it is illegal for women to be scribes, even though the country is ruled by a woman.
One day two things happen to change Maia's life. In the market she encounters a young girl attacked by a monkey named Meret and her mother Nefert. Maia helps the two but unconsciously makes the sign for certain words that go very noticed by Nefert, who thinks originally that Maia is spell casting. Later Maia is woken by her Uncle and she realizes that he is stealing grain from the temple he is a priest at. Horrified by this knowledge she confesses this at a festival that she attends and her life is thrown into chaos. Luckily she finds herself helped by Nefert, who takes her in as her daughter and then is delighted when her suspicions are confirmed when Maia admits she was being trained to be a scribe. It seems as if Nefert has plans for Maia's talents, but will Maia be able to see her Uncle be brought to justice, without any harm being caused to her brother?
This is one of those books I should have enjoyed, but fell just a tad short of my expectations. It is historical fiction in a loose context, and I usually enjoy that genre. But in this case I never got that into it. Maybe the characters are flat, maybe it's the story... in which not a lot every really happens.... Maybe it's the tiny bit of info given about Egypt during the reign of Hathshepsut... whatever the flaw is I can't quite pinpoint it, but it definitely makes this fall short of perfect. I guess I was also surprised that Maia was taken in by Nefert, who treated her kindly but with an attitude like she was another servant in the house. I never bought the whole "second daughter" "second mother" bit. Nefert always seemed like she was using Maia or had some ulterior motive planned, but this suspicion never came to fruition. So, if she had no reason to be devious why was she written that way? Is that the author's way of implying superiority because of her noble status over Maia? Well, if that's the case, mission accomplished, but it does seem as if she implied this behavior for a story that was never realized. Meanwhile, Maia is barely a sympathetic character. She was very flat, and the single burning desire to be a scribe is never something that makes her real. For one thing, she doesn't improve as a scribe from the beginning of the book to the end, as her brother and her never have any more lessons from the onset of the story... yet at the end she somehow qualifies as a scribe worthy of the queen's notice. There is also the issue of the "Gods" speaking through her that implies a touch of fantasy, but seem out of place in this otherwise non-fantastic narrative.
Overall, I give this three and a half out of five stars. If it was any lower I would have had a hard time finishing it.
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The intrigue and mysticism of ancient Egypt comes to life in Ann Turner's spectacular addition to The Life and Times series. In the time of the Pharoah Hatshepsut's rule, the Egyptian days could pass as slowly as the Nile's lazy waters, or as quickly as the Nile's rising floodwaters. Maia and her brother are orphaned and living with a cold, judgmental aunt and uncle in Thebes. Searching for a way out of their house, Maia pleads with her brother, Sethnet, who is learning to be a scribe, to teach her how to write. He agrees, and this is to be her saving skill.
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