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The Twelfth Transforming by Pauline Gedge
Murder, intrigue and sex…welcome to the enchanting world of Egypt’s 18th Dynasty. ‘The Twelfth Transforming’ follows the end of Pharaoh Amunhotep III’s reign and the rise of his son, Amunhotep IV, who history knows as Akhenaten. The majority of this book is told from the point of view of Empress Tiye, the wife of Amunhotep III and mother of Akhenaten.
After the death of Amunhotep, Akhenaten is declared Pharaoh. Two of the three main women in his life are vying for the title of Empress, causing strife in the palace. The famous Nefertiti and Akhenaten’s sister-wife Sitamun are locked in a struggle for power, one that ends with Sitamun’s murder. But instead of declaring Nefertiti Empress, Akhenaten does the unthinkable—he marries Tiye, his mother. Tiye is once again declared Empress, but because she broke one of the declarations of Ma’at (“Hail Tututef, I have not committed sodomy, I have not turned back the generative power”) by marrying her own son, she unleashed a curse upon the entire dynasty. This curse would wipe out Tiye, Akhenaten and all of their descendents.
Pauline Gedge manages to handle all this incest very delicately and tries not to disgust her readers too much. Only a writer of her caliber could pull off such a feat. Her descriptions of ancient Egypt are vivid and she breathes life into people who have been dead for thousands of years. ‘The Twelfth Transforming’ is an amazing book, but it is definitely not for sensitive readers.
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