Loved the info in this one, but I hated how it was all put together. It was half college text book and half lifetime movie dramatizations. The authors need to just pick one. Either write it as historical fiction or give us the facts without the interspersed scenes. I really enjoyed the history and the facts presented. It really seemed the authors had very clear ideas about the topic. I just wish they had picked one route or the other.

This is a fascinating read filled with vivid descriptions of art, hieroglyphics and tombs from two experts in the field of Egyptology. When I was younger I obsessively watched every documentary about Egypt that I could find. Due to time constraints while visiting the Louvre and the British museum you have to choose what you want to see most, for me I picked the Egyptian collections as well as at my local famous museum. Reading this book made me happy to revisit this amazing culture and to learn more about it. While I appreciated the short imaginings at the beginning of chapters, they sort of pulled you out of learning mode by not being factual. Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martins for the ARC.

Billed as a novel of detective suspense and adventurous thrills, Egypt's Golden Couple was so dense with facts, it was almost impossible to read (and I am a fan of Egyptian history). I guess if it had been summarized as a largely historical novel, I might not have been as eager to read it. I applaud the scholarship, but unless you are working on your PhD in Egyptian history, this is not the book for you. I did not enjoy it, would not recommend it and did not finish it.

Akhenaten and Nerertiti. The parents of one of the most recognized names in Egyptian history: Tutankhamun. Who were they? What was their life like? After more than three thousand years, what can we really know about them?

The history of Ancient Egypt has always been fascinating to me. I’ve heard of Nefertiti and I’ve definitely seen the painted bust of her. However, I don’t think I’ve heard of her husband, so I was interested to learn more about what their life was like.

This book is very detailed and very thorough. The research of the authors is evident and I enjoyed the analysis of the art and how it changed during their time period. This also makes this a bit dry and difficult to get through. Each chapter opens with a fictional scene, which does help break up the reading but also felt out of place.

I would recommend this to readers looking for a serious read about an ancient couple who changed their kingdom and made themselves the most important people in the land. .

I appreciated that the authors wove in storytelling throughout the book, but this was a difficult text for me to push through. I generally enjoy learning about ancient Egypt and reading about it, but I found my mind wandering often while reading this one. Ended up not finishing, but do plan to return to it at some point.

Egypt’s Golden Couple is a dual biography of Akhenaten and Nefertiti. While this biography is very comprehensive, it is very dry at times. Also, I thought that there was no new information to what we have already learned about the couple. Still, it is a very fascinating read, and it is explored an intriguing era. Akhenaten and Nefertiti are very powerful people. I just wished that there was more information to know about them. This books still proves that there still needs to be more research on this influential couple.

Thank you to St Martin's Press and NetGalley for an advance copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I have always been fascinated by ancient Egyptian history since I was first introduced to it in a high school history class.
This book focuses on the time period of Amunhotep IV, who later became known as Akhenaten, and Nefertiti. I love how the authors used archeological data to create a narrative of life in those times at the beginning of each chapter, it helped bring alive the subjects of the book.
Anyone interested in history is sure to enjoy this one.

I DNF"d 2 hours into the book. I'm not sure what I was expecting, but it did not hold my attention at all.

This book was the perfect, well-researched balance in presenting information in a reader-friendly manner that was engaging and interesting. I learned so many new things and enjoyed this reading experience tremendously. I was not bogged down with boring facts that seemed random and I loved the way so many people and events in history came alive right before my eyes! Highly recommend!

Egypt’s Golden Couple: How Akhenaten and Nefertiti Became Gods on Earth by John and Colleen Darnell

372Pages
Publisher: St. Martin’s Press
Release Date: November 1, 2022

Nonfiction (Adult), History, Egyptology

The book is divided into the following parts.

Part I: The Parents
Part II: Waset
Part III: Akhet-Aten
Part IV: Gods on Earth
Part V: Twilight of the God

The book is an excellent resource for anyone interested in Egyptology. I love watching documentaries of this period and learned some details I had not known. The author has an easy-to-read writing style that reads more like a novel than a reference book. If you are interested in this important couple, you will like this book.

Ever since elementary school, I have been fascinated with the Egyptian culture.

But in some parts, it felt like a textbook. So I skimmed/lightly read and enjoyed the photos and dialogue more

Who isn't fascinated by the ancient Egyptian culture? Ever since the grade school days, when I wrapped my G.I. Joe in gauze and made a sarcophagus around him out of clay, detail painted like the King Tut photos we studied in school, I've never turned down an opportunity to visit an Egyptian exhibit. And yet I fully admit that I know very little about the era beyond what I've learned in school and on exhibit information panels.

Husband and wife Egyptologist team, John and Colleen Darnell not only share some insight from their research but offer up a narrative of what life might have been like for the royals and 'gods on earth.'

This is the second time in my recent memory that I've encountered a non-fiction book which includes a fiction narrative based on the research (The Real Valkyrie by Nancy Marie Brown, reviewed May 2021). I'm not sure if this has been going on for awhile or if this is a new fad. When done well, it can be quite effective.

But to be done well, it still needs to be thought of as a story. Fiction, with a plot. Some sort of driving force to keep the story moving forward. If it's fiction just to relate day-to-day activities ... we can get that through the non-fiction information.

Through their research, the Darnell's posit that Akhenaten and Nerfertiti were more than just royalty but considered to be gods, manifest human and ruling on earth. The evidence seems indisputable. But then I'm not an Egyptologist - which leads a little bit to my problem reading this.

While I'm fascinated by the culture and history, I'm really not conversant here. I struggle with the names - quite different from my own culture - and the language. Getting a family tree of sorts doesn't actually help me, but often just served to confuse me more:

DNA testing of royal mummies provides a clue: Mutemwia, Amunhotep III’s mother, may have been the sister of Tiye’s father, Yuya. Tiye was probably educated by her father, Yuya, who also served as tutor to her future husband, Amunhotep III. Nefertiti’s family connections rest on more circumstantial evidence, but that same DNA analysis means that she could have been a first cousin of her husband, Amunhotep IV, on both his maternal and paternal sides. This would mean that Eighteenth Dynasty pharaohs of three generations, from Thutmose IV to Amunhotep IV, married into the same family from Ipu. Tiye and Nefertiti’s queenship may have had less to do with their presumed physical beauty and more to do with their intellect and schooling.
I think the Darnell's do a very good job explaining a lot of the names and how they come about, but it's still a monster chore for me to keep them straight. (I know, there's a "Cast of Characters" at the beginning of the book, but this is one of the few times that reading on an e-device doesn't make it easy to refer back to that list.)

I found the non-fiction narration a bit dry and what we might call 'scholarly.' It's very appropriate for the professional world of research papers, but doesn't exactly lend itself to the common reader: "Beside these polychrome delineations of foreign perfidy are representations of the lush floral and ample faunal bounty of Aten’s creation."

The fictional story at the start of each chapter is interesting and definitely presents a good impression of what life may have been like and I liked how the authors clarify the fiction by addressing their discoveries and what leads them to make these assumptions. But as I address above, I don't get a sense of purpose for the fiction other than to support their conclusions. They could just as well have written, "Their day may have started with ..." and written in non-fiction format.

I'm still fascinated by the ancient Egyptian culture and I'll still look forward to anything that provides insight, but this book didn't do much for me. It did provide some insight to the 'godhood' manifestation of some royalty, and I'm confident I'll remember this the next time I visit an exhibit, but this was a lot of book to work through for that little bit.

Looking for a good book? Egypt's Golden Couple by John Darnell and Colleen Darnell is a well research, but rather academic, presentation of some theories of ancient Egypt.

I received a digital copy of this book from the publisher, through Netgalley, in exchange for an honest review.

A clear, novel, and entertaining look at Nefertiti and The Heretic King with new evidence, narrative, and a glimpse into the lives of modern archaeologists. This book includes an extensive look at the art that shapes our understanding of this endlessly fascinating and probably one of the best known periods of Egyptian history.

In this nonfiction book, the authors explore the 14th century BCE reign of Pharaoh Akhenaten and Queen Nefertiti, the parents of Tutankhamun. Akhenaten and Nefertiti’s establishment of a monotheistic solar-based religion, support for architectural and artistic innovations, and strategic vision changed the course of Egyptian history. Early in his 17-year reign during Egypt’s Eighteenth Dynasty, Akhenaten changed his name from Amunhotep IV to Akhenaten, rejecting his father’s religious beliefs in favor of a new solar cult with the god Aten as its focus. Along with Queen Nefertiti, Akhenaten elevated Aten above all other deities, drastically altering Egypt’s religious infrastructure. The city of Akhet-Aten served as a sacred place, reflecting the trinity of the god Aten, Akhenaten, and Nefertiti as god, high priest, and high priestess. Drawing on historical records, artwork, and archaeological discoveries to provide colorful vignettes of daily life during the era was an interesting time in Egypt.

The authors wrote an accessible study of a period of Egypt’s history which I enjoyed reading. At times, I found this book suspenseful and very detailed. It is a compelling book for this time in Egypt. There are rumors that seem to contradict what the Pharaoh did. For me it was a journey through excavations, museums, hieroglyphic texts, and artifacts.
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Although steeped in historical facts and details, I found the structure of this book and the style of the writing to be enjoyable reading. The heretic pharaoh has long been of interest to me (in my own personal 'study' of ancient Egypt) and this book added to my knowledge, giving lots of context and background to his life - and his wife's.

Interesting, informative and enjoyable!

As a child I was FASCINATED with all things Egypt. King Tut, the pyramids, the desert and the culture- it was all so intriguing. It was fun to read this as an adult and uncover a little more history. This book was full of knowledge and very well researched. It did read a bit textbook-y to me at times but overall, I think this is a great read if you would like to learn more history about ancient Egypt.

I really wanted to love this book! As someone who loves Ancient Egyptian history I was super excited to read this book. I love Ancient Egyptian culture and history so much so that I even named my daughter Egypt. With that said, Egypt's Golden Couple was a hard read. I tried very hard to get through the book, but gave up 50% through. Something that should have been pleasurable felt like a chore. Like many have mentioned, I 100% believe the authors are knowledgeable and capable, but this book just didn't do it. I'm not sure where it went wrong, but for me the fictionalized retellings helped the book, but not enough.

This book is a wealth of knowledge, painstakingly laid out in an easy-to-understand manner. Authors John and Colleen Darnell primarily focused on one royal couple, Amunhotep IV (later Akhenaten) and Nefertiti, thus reducing what could have been a glut of Egyptian names for readers to sort through. The lineage of the royal couple is explored, and I was able to walk away with a firm grasp of this Egyltian Dynasty

The authors’ presentation was interesting. Based on their knowledge of Egyptian life, short sketches depicting Egyptian life and customs are inserted at various points in the book as an introduction to a new topic. Detailed explanations follow these short pieces of historical fiction. Thus readers are treated to seeing the interaction of the people who lived long ago along with what has been gleaned over the years from detailed study.

My previous knowledge of Egyptian royalty and their customs has been limited to a few names and pictures of the pyramids. This book opened a whole new world of a culture as well as introducing some of the people who lived long ago. Five stars.

My thanks to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for a complimentary electronic copy of this book.

Ancient Egypt has been my thing since I was a child. I keep up with all the articles about new discoveries, watch all the documentaries and it's a top 5 Bucket List country.

However, upon cracking Egypts Golden Couple open, I would describe my reading experience as a trudge. The kind of feeling you get when you know you have to finish the university textbook and then write a paper for your least favorite class? Yeah, that.

As soon as I got a couple of pages into the prologue, I knew I was in trouble. Names, titles, cities, more names, awkward "fancy" sentence structure. It was a river of information and hitting me too quickly.

There's no doubt that the Darnell's are brilliant Egyptologists; I've enjoyed watching and learning from them for years on so many of the ancient Egypt documentaries.

I believe the downfall to this book was that they had SO much information to share that it became overwhelming. Reorganization, perhaps shorter chapters with clear topics would have made this more palatable. I also found their fictional "reconstructions" stories odd in a non-fiction book.

Wish I could have rated it higher. I think I'll stick to their shows for now.

The story of Akhenaten and Nefertiti told by an Egyptologist couple, how fun! Citing a variety of sources, Egypt’s Golden Couple aims to do what others have not with this royal couple- tell a balanced view of their lives and let the readers make up their own minds.

I liked a lot about the book, especially an admission early on- how much can we really know about the lives of people who lived 3,000 years ago? Well this book tells us, using all kinds of sources. It sets the scene for you so that you actually feel like you are there in Ancient Egypt. The authors truly know how to immerse you- I was confused to find myself on a train in New York in 2022. I was fascinated and will look for more by the authors.