I didn’t spend much time enjoying my usual haunts on the web this week, but here are three spots I did have fun with. Happy Passover to those of you celebrating next week.
A.
Becoming Josephine: “so absorbed by the charming Josephine that I didn’t want to put the book down” Review by Mariana Cotromanes Link here
B.
A rare Late Bronze Age find in Israel interests me. A clay sarcophagus with the human form depicted on it in Egyptian style. Further evidence of Egyptian rule in this period is present in a find next to the skeleton, a scarab seal encased in gold and affixed to a ring. It is the seal of Seti I, father of Ramses II. Since the manuscript I’m plugging away at now has a gold seal ring at the center of the plot and Ramses II is one of the possible villains, this find is just too cool for words! Maybe someone in my mystery series will have to pay a visit to these Canaanites living under Egyptian control at some point. Link here
C.
“the subtle subtext proof of Zevin’s trust in her audience” A review by Cynthia Robertson that made me eager to read Gabrielle Zevin’s ‘AJ Fikry’ Link here
Thanks for the mention, Judith. Had a lovely time at the HNS. 🙂
Judy. It’s so exciting when you read something that fits so well in the story you’re telling you wonder if you didn’t make it up! Y
Did you see the article in the New Yorker about the Parthenon? More inspiration for novelists !
Hi Carolyn, I missed the Parthenon in the New Yorker. I do love this seal ring. It isn’t the seal ring I’m using in my current book, but these treasures don’t survive very often and there is more evidence for other kinds of seals–but for the purposes of my book I wanted a seal ring, not a cylinder seal or other type. So it’s pretty cool to find one lying there by this official in the same period and not so very far off my beaten track. I’d been reassured by a wonderful historian that my use of the ring was just fine, but nice to have history tell me that too!
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