A promising premise - Egyptian adventure down the Nile complete with lost relics and buried secrets - but the story never quite delivered for me. The characters were a bit flat and the plot points became repetitive. Some may enjoy this one, but it was not for me. Thank you to NwtGalley for the opportunity to read and review this book.

dnf @ 20%

i was about to force myself to pick up this book again when i remembered that quitting is an option. slow, repetitive, and dull with awkwardly timed info dumps. and i already dislike the love interest. not for me.

When I first saw this book, I was concerned it might glorify the 'Egyptomania' that raged in Victorian era England as artifacts were polished from Egypt and people attended mummy unwrappings (even sometimes drinking tea made from mummy wrappings!). The author does exactly the opposite in the novel, condemning the practice and exploring the moral ramifications for the crimes that have hurt Egypt's effort to preserve its history.

The main character, Clemmie, is a woman heeroglyphist/linguist in a time where women in academic spaces were almost non-existent. She ventures to Egypt, a place that has always held her heart thanks to her father's business, but not for pleasure: she must return a stolen artifact in hopes to dispell a curse that has ravaged her life for the past five years.

Clemmie must grow by exploring how her father (and to an extent, herself) contributed to the larger problem of illegal archaeology digs and artifact trading. Her perspective shifts through the novel, and she is forced to grapple with hard truths.

I really enjoyed the blend of ancient mythology with the gothic elements woven throughout. The story kept me on the edge of my seat, and the author's passion for ancient Egypt truly shines through. What an amazing debut! 💚

Thank you so much to @rachel.louise.driscoll @netgalley and @randomhouse for the opportunity to read and review this novel.

I was attracted by the 1890s Egyptian setting, but unfortunately I could tell early on this title wasn't for me and ended up skim-reading the majority of it. The themes of sisterhood and feminine power and being "not like other girls" are heavy ones here--and hip in the publishing world just now--so this will no doubt appeal to many readers, but I personally found it overdone to the point of pedantry. Likewise, the imperialism and smuggling subjects, which, while certainly fair to discuss, were delivered with no great subtlety by a host of rather sanctimonious characters.

The plot point I was most intrigued by--the mummified conjoined twins--was never really explored. We never learn more about the twins, and it's their alleged curse, not the twins themselves, that is significant to the story. If you are going to start off with something this distinctive and shocking, one would think it would be pursued.

The story goes on to follow Clemmie (not a fan of the name personally; simply "Clem" would have been a bit more mature) as she travels up and down the Nile on a mission to break her "curse." After a while, I found her insistence in believing in curses a little naive. Since the entire story is dependent on it, the plot in general felt unserious and the stakes, for a non-curse-believer, were low. Difficult to relate.

The two or three reveals in the latter part of the book were treated as if they ought to be surprising in some way, but they weren't (the identity of E, Rowland's backstory, and Clement's secret). "E" in particular should not have been treated as a reveal. I also found the constant flashbacks excessive, especially the random sisterly reminiscences which added little to the story. The writing style was eloquent at times but tried too hard at others. The linguistic references were interesting. I did enjoy the scene in the tomb with Rowland, which was perhaps the best thing about the book. I wished the romance had been allowed to blossom after that instead of running into conflict and then petering out, only to get a half-hearted resolution in the epilogue. Ideally, Rowland's confession would have come earlier and the tomb scene would be the resolution of their conflict.

Overall, great setting and some good plot points, but the handling of the story was not for me. I'd recommend it to those who enjoy sisterhood stories.

eARC Review: The House of Two Sisters by Rachel Louise Driscoll ⛵️

This was a fascinating mix of Victorian England, Ancient Egyptian mythology, and the dilemma of ancient antiquities being stolen from their homelands. I won’t lie, I was initially worried that the story might gloss over the Victorians’ obsession with Egypt (or really, any ancient Mediterranean culture) and its colonial history in the country, but I’m so happy Driscoll shed light on the lackadaisical view average Victorians had when it came to respecting ancient artifacts and the countries they came from and how Britain used Egypt as a colony for their own benefit. For me, it made the story more enjoyable to read (. . . Then again, I do love bashing the Victorians for everything they’ve done and influenced to the world). 🤣

The story follows Clemmie, a young woman passionate about Egyptology and a long time sufferer of a potential curse. The book jumps back and forth between the current plot and flashbacks to where the trouble all began for Clemmie’s family. Despite being a phenomenal learned scholar, she did come off rather naive and standoffish here and there, but I guess that’s higher class society women for you, especially ones that were sheltered. 🤷🏻‍♀️

I loved the motley crew she ended up with on the Nile and how they all made her come out of her shell one way or another. I do wish we could’ve gotten more time to see the connection between Rowland and Clemmie so that their ending didn’t feel so rushed. I also felt like the sisterhood between Rosetta and Clemmie should’ve been shown to the reader instead of recounted through memories. 💭

While the plot did drag a bit here and there for me, I still had a rather good time in the setting and with the characters. The last 30% especially made it up for me in the end. Huge thank you goes out to Ballantine Books and NetGalley for accepting my request to read this in exchange for an honest (and late 😅) review. And to the author, Driscoll, thank you for writing a Victorian era book that really showcased the darker side of Egyptomania without sugarcoating it for the reader. ❤️

Publication date: June 10 (published in the UK under the title of Nephthys)!

Overall: 4/5 ⭐️

This was so up my alley. In the 1880s, Clemmie works with her father, a renowned antiquities collector, in England and helps him translate Egyptian hieroglyphics. But one evening, they uncover a sacred amulet buried with a mummy, and strange and tragic things start happening to Clemmie and her family. Five years later, Clemmie travels to Egypt, determined to return the amulet to its rightful place and hopefully rid her family of the curse she has become convinced of.

I’m a sucker for ancient Egypt and history and mythology in general, and this delivered and then some. Clemmie is an easy heroine to root for: she takes things into her own hands despite the misogyny of the times and the pressure from her parents to be more “normal.” I loved the emphasis on exposing the evils of looting and grave-robbing, and especially liked the way Clemmie was pushed to see that what she thought of as noble and intellectual was actually exploitative on so many levels. The Egypt journey is described so vividly and beautifully, and the twists and turns were fun. I also enjoyed how much history was woven in and the myths included.

Thank you to NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group - Ballantine for an advance reader’s copy in exchange for an honest review!

I felt like this one missed its potential. I liked the premise of the story, felt like it was pretty descriptive overall… but then the writing itself became very hard to follow.

I wish the curse was more than what it was, it seemed like the underlying storyline could have been strung together better.

Thank you Net Galley & Random House for an advanced copy of this

I received this e-arc from NetGalley. The concept of traveling to Egypt and discovering relics was very intriguing to me. I was looking for the excitement and energy of The Mummy but this was slow paced and eventually I got lost in the Egyptologic explanations, myths and curses. There was very little romance and character development.

Oh, man, I'm feeling so conflicted about this one. I really hate that I didn't love it. I love Egyptian mythology and I had such high hopes for this one. The characters fell flat and the plot was a slog. I'm so sad about it. I want more Egyptian-centered stories and I hate that this one didn't work for me. Ended up DNFing.

2.5 / 5 ⭐️

Like many readers and fascinated by ancient Egypt, its mythology, and the excavations that took place in the 19th and 20th centuries. The vivid description of the setting and the scenery was a definite highlight in this book. I also enjoyed learning about the myth of Nephthys having mostly only heard of Isis and Osiris before.

Character wise, I really wanted to like Clemmie. She’s clearly capable being able to read hieroglyphics, compassionate about her family, and brave to have set out to Egypt alone. The problem I have is that she’s all of those things at the beginning of the book making her growth feel linear.

Very early on in the book, Clemmie expresses her dislike of the treatment and removal of ancient artifacts from Egypt. It would’ve been fascinating if Clemmie had not seen the errors in her father’s methods until after the “curse” began. That would have greatly increased the impact had by her conversations with Mariam and her, seeing in person, the destruction and mistreatment of tombs along the Nile. She could’ve gone from “Egypt is a fun hobby” to a greater exploration about the exploitation and colonization of Egypt (which I think is what the author wanted).

Plot wise, I found the first half of this book to be painfully slow. Things do pick up in the last 40% but at that point, I was more ready for the book to end than to know how the story ends. To be honest, I also didn’t like that the choice of the villain. It was the obvious choice, and that made it boring.

Thank you NetGalley for this ARC.

As someone who’s always been fascinated by ancient Egypt (and loved the idea of a female Victorian Egyptologist main character), I was initially drawn to The House of Two Sisters with high hopes. The setting promised intrigue, mystery, and rich historical detail—everything I usually love in a novel like this. Unfortunately, the book didn’t deliver.

The biggest issue is the pacing: what could’ve been a gripping historical drama is dragged down by a slow, meandering plot that never really goes anywhere. Key moments that should’ve been full of tension or revelation felt strangely flat. It was hard to stay engaged when I kept waiting for something (literally anything) to happen.

The characters didn’t help matters either. They felt underdeveloped and distant, lacking the depth or emotional resonance needed to anchor the story. I never felt connected to them or invested in their journey, which made the narrative feel even more tedious.

My thanks to NetGalley, Random house publishing group - Ballantine books, and the author for allowing me to read the advance reader copy in exchange for a fair and honest review.

A really good debut novel! The pacing isn’t perfect (the back half moves more quickly, and for the better) and some of the FMC’s internal monologue becomes repetitive (I get it, she thinks she’s cursed). But I loved being submerged in the Nile and mired in the sandy banks of Egypt, studying hieroglyphics and antique structures, and I would 100% read another novel from this author.

This is a fine gothic novel centered around the Egyptomania of the Victorian period, in which a young woman, herself a highly skilled scholar, has been working with her father, participating in mummy unwrappings and heirogylphic translations for paying crowds. But when her father unwraps a shocking and very rare mummy, and dissects it, she believes that its curse descends upon the family, and she sets out to end it. There are some stock characters here--the vapid English tourists, former military men, and others--and the plot is fairly predictable, but it's an enjoyable read for a summer afternoon.

I really wanted to like this one, but overall I was mostly frustrated by the pacing and character relationships. I loved the adventure aspect of this novel and wish the pacing would have matched that of an adventure novel.

I featured The House of Two Sisters in my June 2025 new releases video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6q31xhbo1tE, and though I have not read it yet, I am so excited to and expect 5 stars! I will update here when I post a follow up review or vlog.

Have you ever wanted to cruise up the Nile river, exploring ancient sites along the way? The House of Two Sisters fulfills the dreams of Victorian and Modern-day Egyptologists alike! Clementine “Clemmie” Attridge is the daughter of the late Egyptologist Clement Attridge and has just arrived in Cairo. She has come to break the curse placed on her family when her father unwrapped a mummy with two heads and an amulet of protection. She has come to Egypt to return the amulet in the hopes that the curse will be removed, but due to the Egyptomania gripping the Victorian world, many are hungry to capture any ancient object or mummies that they can!

This book switches back and forth from Clemmie’s time in Egypt to the past where she and her family are feeling the effects of the curse on them. For most of the book, it feels like there’s some part of the story missing, because there is. The build up is quite slow. While I think a lot of people would enjoy the sumptuous descriptions of Egypt, it made the book drag for me. There is also a lot of interweaving the Egyptian myth of Osiris, Isis, Nephthys, and Seth, which is a myth I didn’t know too much about. It is definitely interesting, but maybe a bit too heavy-handed in this story.

Thank you to NetGalley, Random House, Ballantine Books, and Rachel Louise Driscoll for my review copy!

3 stars

This is honestly a fun and engaging late Victorian-era Egyptology adventure book, about a hieroglyphist Englishwoman struggling to undo the curse she believes has plagued herself and her sister ever since her father desecrated the mummy of ancient Egyptian conjoined twins. I think for anyone who fondly remembers 1999’s <i> The Mummy </i> movie, this will be a fun time. Unfortunately I’m just too picky; I spent the whole book longing to re-read the <i> Amelia Peabody </i> series by Elizabeth Peters, which I think did this concept somewhat better; Clementine would fit right into that series as one of the charming but foolish young people that Amelia and the Emerson clan find themselves assisting.

Newcomers to Egyptian mythology will appreciate that Clementine, our narrator and protagonist, is an expert in Egyptian myth and tells her favorites to her travelling companions, which is both edifying and interesting. As a reader already somewhat familiar with the stories, however, I found myself annoyed that Clemmie’s version was never qualified; it draws heavily and almost exclusively from Plutarch rather than from actual Egyptian sources, which ran counter to the Egyptian-culture-belongs-to-Egyptians message the story was ostensibly trying to get across. To that end, there was also a scene with a blind fortune teller beggar woman that seemed entirely uncritical of that trope and left a bad taste in my mouth.

Ultimately, this story seems to struggle with whether it wants to be about sisterhood (biological and/or cross-national) or about Clemmie as neo-Gothic heroine. I think the UK title, <i> Nepthys, </i> serves the story better by putting the focus on the overlooked Egyptian goddess around which the story thematically centers. There’s a lot of good material in this book, but it never quite satisfied me with its execution.

4.25 ⭐️
The House of Two Sisters by Rachel Louise Driscoll is a story rich in Egyptian mythology, dripping with gothic atmosphere, full of mysterious twists and turns, and above all a story of sisterhood.

Set in Victorian era Egypt, Clemmie, the daughter of an Egyptologist, has spent her life working alongside her father interpreting the hieroglyphics that are unearthed in his findings. Believing her family to be cursed after reading an unusual message on an amulet, she travels to Egypt in an attempt to make right her father’s mistake and break her family’s curse. Along the way she makes new friends, and encounters new challenges with the possibility of deadly consequences.

The lyrical prose in this book was absolutely beautiful and there are so many lines that have stuck with me, for example, “Grief is the Nile River that floods and recedes but never dries up.”. I really appreciate mythology of any kind, so of course this book spoke to me. I also found the commentary on illegal dealing of artifacts, Egyptomania, and how these aspects affected the characters in this story very compelling. I found the romantic plot between two of the characters to be very special and tender, even if a tad underdeveloped. As a sister, specifically the youngest sister, I felt a special connection to Clemmie and Rosetta’s sisterhood bond. Sibling relationships are at the absolute forefront of this story and I really appreciated that aspect.

While the first half is slow moving, I feel that the pay off was worth it. I definitely recommend this one!

A huge thank you to Random House Publishing Group- Ballantine Books and Netgalley for the opportunity to read this ARC in exchange for an honest review!

In 'The House of Two Sisters', Clementine "Clemmie" Attridge believes that her family has been cursed after her father unwraps and desecrates an unusual mummy. After five years of suffering, Clemmie has no choice but to travel to Egypt in an attempt to return what was stolen and break the curse.

The pacing felt a bit slow for the first half but by the second it picked up and was fast to finish. I really enjoyed when the story leaned into the gothic elements! I was also very interested in reading the actual bits of Egyptian mythology woven throughout the story.

Rachel Louise Driscoll obviously has a lot of love and passion for Egypt and it shines through. She also really made sure to emphasize the damage that foreigners/colonizers have done to Egypt and its artifacts and reiterated that these items should remain in and be returned to Egypt.

Thank you to NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group - Ballantine for providing me with an advance copy.

I was hooked from the beginning!
It was amazing and engaging.
I was instantly sucked in by the atmosphere and writing style.
The characters were all very well developed .
The writing is exceptional and I was hooked after the first sentence.