The Painted Queen

This book in one word? Lazy.

I feel a bit conflicted saying that, since apparently Joan Hess was sick and near the end of her life when she took on Elizabeth Peters's unfinished manuscript. So maybe it wasn't laziness that she suffered from, but illness and distraction.

But that doesn't change the way the book turned out: completely out of place in the series, in an unfamiliar voice, and full of seemingly careless errors. I could list them but others have already done so.

Truthfully, maybe someone else should have taken over this manuscript, someone who had the health and energy to truly give it what it deserved and who had the time to reread the series beforehand. I understand how difficult it must have been for Hess, and I sympathize, but it doesn't change the final product. Why the editor did not catch the mistakes or clean it up is anybody's guess.

When I reread this series (and I plan to), I will skip over this one, as it really doesn't feel like canon and shoves a wrench between two of the most emotionally fraught books in the series.