I’m sorry I paused this book review series for so long. I had to re-read Pride and Prejudice to help one of my students with an essay and then tackle Murder in the Cathedral. I love Pride and Prejudice and it was a pleasure to re-read it but Murder in the Cathedral, well, I just wasn’t feeling it this time.
In between all of that, I found myself diving into the historical/mystery/thriller/romance series written by Barbara Mertz under the pseudonym Elizabeth Peters. I found myself interested
in the Amelia Peabody series (of which there are twenty books) when I read the first book of her lesser-known series featuring librarian Jacqueline Kirby. I enjoyed the Kirby novel, set in the 1970s in Rome. When I checked the reviews of the book on Good Reads, which I only do after I have read a book so as not to color my opinion, I saw references to the Amelia Peabody series and people were waxing poetic about it so I started the series.
I’m on book seven now and I am not quite sure how I feel about the series. I know, it’s weird, I’m not usually so undecided about a book or books.
Barbara Mertz was a Doctor of Egyptology who having written two books about ancient Egypt (which are still in print and used today) began a career as a fiction writer. She wrote over seventy novels in a few series as well as many stand-alone novels.
This series features thirty-two-year-old Amelia Peabody Emerson, who in the first novel, Crocodile on the Sandbank, which is set during the 1884-85 digging season, inherits a modest fortune and decides to fulfill a dream of visiting the places she has been studying under the tutelage of her recently deceased scholarly father. While in Rome she rescues a destitute and disgraced English gentlewoman who has been discarded by her lover. She then moves on to Egypt with the lady acting as her companion. They stumble across two brothers who are archeologists, one of whom is deathly ill. Amelia jumps in with her medical kit and nurses him to health. Fascinated by the art on the tomb walls Amelia decides to stay and document the finds. Radcliff Emerson, a famous archeologist who is also famous for his temper and reluctance to suffer anyone less intelligent than he, argues with her at every opportunity but suffers her presence since help is at a premium under the primitive conditions of an archeological dig. He and Amelia clash constantly but by the end of the novel (you see this coming a mile away) they are passionately and romantically in love.
The novel also features a mysterious mummy who haunts the dig site every night, a cousin claiming love for Amelia, a rejected lover coming back, and a missing will.
It’s very entertaining and enjoyable. So what am I unsure about?
Amelia annoys me a bit. She is extremely sure of herself, almost maniacally so, and her feminism is a little over the top. Granted the character is set in Victorian times when women were little more than chattel but her constant harping about how women should be in charge of this and that gets on the reader’s nerves. What is very amusing is her descriptions of how her dresses got in the way of her being able to work on the dig properly. In later books, she designs a practical working outfit complete with a jangling tool belt and pants with pockets. As you move on in the series the two marry and produce a precocious young son nicknamed Ramses, who is more than a little much, however, the way his mother treats him is also exasperating.
Another irritation is the not-always-subtle anti-Catholic, anti-Christian comments of Emerson. He is a proclaimed atheist so it is in character for him and the comments are mostly off-hand derision of clergy in the book or something minor like that, still, it grated on me. Again, it was in character and if I created an atheist character in a story having them make disparaging comments about people of faith would be a normal character trait, but still I bristled.
That’s a me thing, it might not bother anyone else.
After each one of these books that I have finished, I decided to take a break before the next one, except I found myself looking up which one is next and getting it from the library without delay. The stories are somewhat outlandish, but the history is accurate even to the point of including some real-life archeologists in the books.
It’s a bit like reading an Indiana Jones story. You know it can’t possibly have happened but you are happy to go along for the ride.
If you don’t mind preachy Victorian feminists I recommend giving this series a try.
Find a list of the Amelia Peabody series in chronological order here.
In looking up the links for the books, I discovered a set of Amelia Peabody Paper Dolls and now I want them.
At the end of the week, I will be hosting a giveaway of a free year of a paid subscription for my followers here. All you will have to do is leave a comment on the post and share it on your social media or Notes. Three people will win one year free.
** If you click on an Amazon link and purchase anything I will receive a small (tiny really) commission at no cost to you. Thank you for your support.
Always fun to see a Book Talk newsletter!
Checking out Miss Peabody at the library! I do love the promise of a series.
I thought of you when I finally, breathlessly closed the cover on This Thing of Darkness by Fiorella de Maria and KV Turley because it was so excellent. I also like de Maria's Father Gabriel, but not quite as much. Series though!