Mailbox Monday - January 2, 2012

Mailbox Monday is on tour now! It is being hosted this month by At Home With Books! To find out more about the history of Mailbox Monday and a list of future hosts visit the Mailbox Monday site.

Mailbox Monday is a gathering place for readers to share the books that came into their house last week and explore great book blogs. Warning: Mailbox Monday can lead to envy, toppling TBR piles and humongous wish lists.

I didn't get any books for Christmas but I got a couple of Barnes and Noble gift cards and that works even better in my opinion! I loaded my boys in the car and ventured out to get some new books...its so hard for me to find any these days! I think I'm going to have to stick to ordering online and from the UK! Lol! Anyway, here's what I picked up...and I still have $10 left!

Cleopatra's Daughter, Michelle Moran

I've been a big fan of Ms. Moran since reading her wonderful novel The Heretic Queen a couple of years ago. I have heard really good things about this novel and can't wait to dive in!

Sense and Sensibility, Jane Austen

I love Austen and my copy of this novel has vanished somewhere in this house. So, I picked up a replacement...which means I'll find my original any time.

Venetia, Georgette Heyer

After reading my first Regency novel by this author last year I was hooked! They didn't have much of a select (at all) but this one looked pretty good! Can't wait to see what Ms. Heyer has in store for me between the pages of this one!

This Day in History...

October 13, 54 - Nero becomes the Emperor of Rome.

October 13, 1362 - For the first time, Parliament is opened with a speech in English.

October 13, 1399 - The House of Lancaster was begun when Henry IV was crowned King of England.

October 13, 1453 - Edward, Prince of Wales, son of Henry VI, was born at Westminster Palace.

October 13, 1884 - Greenwich is established as the Universal Time Meridian of longitude.

This Day in History...

September 17, 480 BC - Leonidas and his 300 Spartans begin the Battle of Thermopylae.

September 17, 1701 - James II died while in exile in France.

September 17, 1745 - The Jacobite supporters of Bonnie Prince Charlie occupied Edinburgh.

This Day in History...

September 2, 31 BC - Octavius Caesar, the future Emperor Augustus, defeated Mark Antony at the Battle of Actium.

September 2, 1348 - Joan, daughter of Edward III, died of the plague on her way to marry the Infante Pedro of Castile. She was buried in France.

September 2, 1666 - The Great Fire of London began in a baker's shop in Pudding Lane. It rapidly ended up destroying most of London's buildings and houses. This was the end of medieval London (and the end of thatch covered roofs in the city).

September 2, 1752 - The Julian calendar was used in Britain and the Colonies 'officially' for the last time. The following day became 14th September in the Gregorian calendar.

September 2, 1945 - World War II officially ended with the Japanese surrender aboard the USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay.

This Day in History...

August 26, 55BC - Julius Caesar crossed the Channel for his invasion of England.

August 26, 1346 - Edward III and his son Edward the Black Prince, defeated Philip VI of France at the Battle of Crécy.

August 26, 1819 - Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha and future consort to Queen Victoria, was born in Bavaria.

This Day in History...

August 24, 79 - Mt. Vesuvius erupts. Pompeii and Herculaneum are buried under volcanic ash.

August 24, 1113 – Geoffrey V, Count of Anjou was born. He was the father of Henry II.

August 24, 1200 - King John married Isabella of Angouleme in France.

This Day in History...

August 12, 30 BC - Cleopatra dies, allegedly by suicide.

August 12, 1762 - The future George IV was born at St. James's Palace.

August 12, 1904 - Tsarevich Alexei, son of Tsar Nicholas II, was born at the Peterhof Palace.

This Day in History...

July 13, 100 BC - Julius Caesar is born.

July 13, 1189 - Matilda of England and Duchess of Saxony dies. She was daughter to Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine.

July 13, 1527 - John Dee, English scientist, is born. Dee would become a consultant to Elizabeth I and was a noted mathematician, astronomer, astrologer, and devoted much of his life to the study of alchemy and divination.

July 13, 1837 - Queen Victoria became the first monarch to move into Buckingham Palace.

This Day in History...

June 11, 1184 BC - According to calculations by Eratosthenes, this is the day that the city of Troy was sacked and burned.

June 11, 1183 - Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine's oldest son, Henry, died. This made Richard the heir to the English throne.

June 11, 1381 - Wat Tyler led the peasants of Southern England in a march to London. This was the first popular rebellion in English history.

June 11, 1456 - Anne Neville, daughter of the Earl of Warwick, is born. She would later become the wife of Richard III.

June 11, 1488 - James III of Scotland was murdered by rebellious Scottish nobles. He was succeeded by his 15 year old son, James IV.

June 11, 1509 - An eighteen year old Henry VIII married Catherine of Aragon, his brother Arthur's widow. He would regret this decision 20 years later when she had failed to produce a male heir and he wanted to marry Anne Boleyn.

This Day in History...

April 16, 1178 BC - It is roughly calculated that this is the date that Odysseus finally made it home from the Trojan War.

April 16, 1521 - Martin Luther's first appearance before the Court of Worms and the Holy Roman Emperor.

April 16, 1746 - Bonnie Prince Charlie (the Young Pretender) is defeated at the Battle of Culloden.

This Day in History...

March 15, 44 BC - "The Ides of March" - Julius Caesar was stabbed to death on the floor of the Roman Senate.

March 15, 1672 - Charles II enacted the Declaration of Indulgence. This was a beginning step towards establishing freedom of religion in England.

This Day in History...

February 16, 1923 - Howard Carter lifted the lid off the sarcophagus to reveal a golden effigy of the young king Tutankhamun. He discovered the tomb 12 months earlier.

Book Review: The Heretic Queen

The Heretic Queen, Michelle Moran
5 roses

This is the first of Michelle Moran's books that I have read and after reading it, I can not wait to read her other two! It was simply amazing! So good in fact that my book club will be reading it in a few months!

**Review may contain spoilers!**


This is actually Moran's second book and tells the story of Nefertari, beloved wife of the great Pharaoh Ramesses II and niece of the infamous Nefertiti. The story covers Nefertari's life from a young orphaned princess in the court of Seti I up through her crowning as Queen of Egypt in her mid teens. We really see her struggle against the lasting legacy of her family - still considered heretics by the people of Egypt. Nefer, as she is called by Ramesses, also has to struggle to outwit and triumph over two women determined to see her destroyed - Iset, Ramesses's first wife, and Iset's "adviser" Henuttawy, Ramesses's aunt. They see her as a threat to the power that they want to hold. However, when Nefertari is taken under the wing of Ramesses's other aunt, Woserit, she is put on the path that will help her triumph. Once they are married, while it is a passionate relationship, Nefertari also proves how valuable she is to Ramesses as she is very intelligent, well versed in many languages, and does not shy away from warfare - even going into battle with him! The struggle between Nefertari and Iset and their "advisers" for the title of Chief Wife really is a battle between good and evil as there is an underlying story of palace and political intrigue throughout.

This is an absolutely fascinating and gripping story that I could not put down; it is full of mystery, lies and intrigue, love, passion, and loyalty. There are many gaps in the history of ancient Egypt but I felt Moran did a great job filling in some of them to make an excellent story. It is written in the first person POV, which can limit the story sometimes but in my opinion does not hinder the story here. The author does an absolutely wonderful job of describing not only the characters, who really come alive, but also the sights and sounds of ancient Egypt; I could close my eyes and picture what Nefertari was seeing. As to the characters, the love story between Nefertari and Ramesses is made even more wonderful because it is true and I was pulling for Nefertari's triumph from the start. I loved seeing how she grew and matured into the intelligent woman who knew how to make herself indispensable to Ramesses, ultimately helping her to win the crown. It was also touching to see how much Ramesses cared for her, never letting idle gossip or the opinions of others poison his true feelings. Every story has to have a villain and I can't think of two characters that I have ever hated more than Iset and Henuttawy; I loved every triumph Nefertari had over them.

I would highly recommend this book to anyone, especially those with an interest in ancient Egypt. Yes, I realize that there have been liberties taken but I don't think that takes away from the story at all. I can not wait to read her first novel, Nefertiti and her latest Cleopatra's Daughter. This is a wonderful book by a very talented author and I don't think you'll be disappointed.

This Day in History...

November 4, 1922 - English explorers Lord Carnarvon and Howard Carter discovered the tomb of King Tutankhamen in the Valley of the Kings near Luxor, Egypt. The young pharaoh's tomb had been undisturbed since 1337 BC.

This Day in History...

August 24, 79 - Mount Vesuvius in the Bay of Naples erupts, burying the towns of Pompeii and Herculaneum killing thousands. The cities, buried under a thick layer of volcanic material and mud, were pretty much forgotten. In the 1700s, they were rediscovered and excavated, providing an unprecedented record of the everyday life of an ancient civilization.


At noon, the mountain exploded sending a 10-mile mushroom cloud of ash and pumice into the stratosphere. For the next 12 hours, ash and pumice stones showered Pompeii and some of the residents decided to flee. About 2,000 people stayed, holed up in cellars or stone structures, hoping to wait out the eruption. Everyone who remained were killed the next morning when a cloud of toxic gas poured into the city and suffocated those in hiding. A flow of rock and ash followed, collapsing buildings and burying the dead.

Wind protected Herculaneum from the initial eruption, but then a giant cloud of hot ash and gas raced down the western flank of Vesuvius (pyroclastic flow most likely), filling the city and burning or asphyxiating all who remained. This was followed by a flood of volcanic mud and rock which buried the city.

Pompeii was buried under 14 to 17 feet of ash and pumice. Herculaneum was buried under more than 60 feet of mud and volcanic material.

The remains of 2,000 were found at Pompeii. After they died their bodies were covered with ash that hardened and preserved the outline of their bodies. As the bodies decomposed they left a kind of mold behind in the shape of the bodies that had once laid there. Archaeologists who found these molds filled them with plaster, revealing the death pose of the victims. The whole city is frozen in time. The first human remains weren't found until 1982 and were found at Herculaneum. These skeletons found in a cave near the coast bear horrible burn marks that are evidence of a horrible death.