September 2008: The Heretic Queen by Michelle Moran

diamondlil · Post by **diamondlil** » Tue September 16th, 2008, 8:05 pm

Mine arrived yesterday too.

Divia · Post by **Divia** » Tue September 16th, 2008, 8:48 pm

5 Stars on Amazon

boswellbaxter · Post by **boswellbaxter** » Tue September 16th, 2008, 10:54 pm

Bought mine this afternoon and got a couple of chapters read during dinner.

Kailana · Post by **Kailana** » Thu September 18th, 2008, 11:08 am

If anyone is finished this book and wants to discuss it, I'm game. I finished it the other night.

Divia · Post by **Divia** » Thu September 18th, 2008, 11:11 am

I finished it last week

So I'm game.

Let me ask you this?

Did you miss Moses in the story? Were you hoping for him to appear?

Julianne Douglas · Post by **Julianne Douglas** » Thu September 18th, 2008, 8:36 pm

Divia, I'm confused. I thought Moses WAS in the story as the character Ahmoses. It's just that Michelle portrayed him from an Egyptian perspective, rather than the Biblical one. He asked for the liberation of the Habiru (the Hebrews), but without all the theatrics of the Hebrew Scriptures.

I thought using him as a bridge between the two novels--it was due to Ahmoses's influence (his discussions with Akhenaten) that Akhenaten embraced monotheism (albeit in quite a different form than Judaism)--was quite a clever device on Michelle's part.

Anyway, I hope Michelle will correct me if I misread these passages.

Divia · Post by **Divia** » Thu September 18th, 2008, 8:53 pm

No you're right.

Some people are just expecting the Biblical moses and some might be upset he wasnt there.

Susan · Post by **Susan** » Thu September 18th, 2008, 10:46 pm

My copy arrived yesterday! Hopefully I can zip through my teacher work this weekend and spend some time reading it.

michellemoran · Post by **michellemoran** » Thu September 18th, 2008, 11:26 pm

Julianne, you're right. That was what I was going for (as explained in the Author's Note).

As Divia points out, he's certainly not the Biblical Moses.

Julianne Douglas · Post by **Julianne Douglas** » Fri September 19th, 2008, 3:40 am

I think it was much more interesting NOT to find a typical depiction of Moses. I really appreciated how Ahmoses tries to appeal to Nefertari's own woundedness at being an outcast in order to win freedom for his people. It gave so much more psychological depth to the situation.

I'll have to admit, though, for the first couple of chapters I was looking for Moses to appear as Rameses foster-brother, a la Prince of Egyptt. Then I figured I had the wrong Rameses. I patted myself on the back, however, when I recognized right away that Ashai was an Egyptianization of Asher, Moses's brother. Then I knew the entire depiction of the Hebrews in Egypt was going to be interesting.

Another question for Michelle, if I haven't bugged her enough yet--what did your publisher think of the Moses angle? Did they want him to appear more or the Exodus story to play a greater role in the novel for "curb appeal"?