As a result, I have to keep an eye out for other potential issues too much romance, violence, etc. Thanks for the input! It was formerly published by Bethlehem Books and is appropriate for 10 and up, or in your case Sunny, an interested 9 year old. The Cat of Bubastes by G. I would probably say it is better suited for 12 and up. I have a 7 year old boy with an exceptionally high reading ability so I understand your caution.
The Moorchild, […]. Ancient History: Mara, Daughter of the Nile. Puffin, Ages up. Support our writers and help keep Redeemed Reader ad-free. Learn More. Get Equipped. Emily on March 4, at pm. Sunny on March 4, at pm. Betsy on March 5, at am. Hayley on March 5, at am. Sunny on March 5, at pm. Christina on March 7, at am. Hayley on March 7, at am. However, she does pay the price for it in the end. Despite the fact that spying and treachery are key in the novel, loyalty and love are probably the clearest values.
Spiritual Content All the characters serve the gods and goddesses of Egypt. Violence One of the characters is beaten severely at the end of the book, and two guards are killed at another point.
Mara is threatened with beatings as a slave in the first chapter or so. Sheftu, her second "master," believes that his fate is to be eaten by crocodiles. Sold too many times to remember anything about her parents or her home, educated in both Egyptian and Babylonian by a former master, she is now slave to a cruel one, who keeps her in a tight-leash and hungry.
But Mara is nothing if a cunning, rebellious young woman and one day bored and feeling the hunger for both food and a taste of freedom she decides to sneak out of the house into the market for a few hours, consequences be damned. Unbeknownst to her, she was being watched by two men who by coincidence — or Destiny — were at the market at the very same time and both watch as her master finds her and takes her away to be beaten. Egypt is at the moment in time, where Hatshepsut, the first Queen Pharaoh has usurped the throne from her half-brother Thutmose , whom she keeps as a high-class prisoner in court.
Hatshepsut is seen as a vain queen more interested in emptying the coffers in projects to further engorge her own vanity instead of taking care of her people and her lands. There are talks of rebellion all over Egypt supposedly to start soon with an unknown powerful leader working for Thutmose. Spies for both sides are all over the Court and Mara is thrown in the middle of this complicated situation. One of the men who had watched her in the marketplace intercepts Mara and her master, and before Mara can be punished, she is bought by him, an agent of Hatshepsut.
Her ease with her two languages saves the day and she is told to find a boat to take her to Thebes where she is to take the position of Interpreter at the Court between Thutmose and his bride to be, a Canaanite princess, Inanni. Her mission is dangerous but if she succeeds, she will be granted her freedom. But in another twist of fate, in the very same boat that is taking her to Court, she meets the leader of the Rebellion, the fierce, powerful and handsome Lord Sheftu , who was that second man who observed her at the market place.
They start a friendship or is it? But her mission is to pass along those very same messages she is supposed to intercept.
Mara is no fool and with all of her boldness and craftiness decides to play for both sides whilst at the same time, enjoying the freedom that her new position grants her. If at first Mara, is more than happy to play her part and to enjoy the commodities of being treated as a higher ranking server rather than a slave, soon enough reality bites and she comes to realize that these are dangerous times and that she is playing a dangerous game. And what would happen if ever one of her maters discovers the double game she is playing?
And this is only the start — the book is amazing. Their relationship is one full of tension: are they purely master and slave? Friends or Foes? And so the story alternates its point of view between Mara and Sheftu but also some of the well-drawn and compelling secondary characters — like poor unwanted Princess Inanni and Nekohnkh, the owner of the boat where Mara and Sheftu first met and who becomes sort of a father figure to Mara.
As a lover of all things Egyptian, I was thrilled at the way ancient Egypt was brought to life by the author and how vivid her descriptions of every-day life both in the streets and in the Courts were. I have to say that at first, it broke my heart to see the Great Hatshepsut turned into a hideous villain but once I got pass that, I enjoyed the story so very much.
This book has everything I could hope for: the vividness of the historical setting, the amazing pair of protagonists, believable and well developed plot and a fantastic love story to boot. The second half of the book as a whole.
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