All that may be beloved

sadly this is the last amelia peobody novel as elizabeth peters passed in aug. 2013. also sadly, ms. peters had only started writing the final page at the time of her passing, but left a lot of notes which joan hess used to complete the novel. i don't know if any were on the story or dialogue or just on the background (the discovery & disappearance of the famous bust of queen nefertiti)

i'm only part way though it, but it reads like fan fiction. not very good fan fic either. characters are out of character or almost parodies of themselves. there's a pack of assassins running around in almost comical fashion & the peabody/emerson clan's enemy sethos (mater criminal & master of disguise) seems almost shoehorned in. frankly, i'm not sure i really cared for the character anyway.
and now titles of previous amelia peabody novels are being randomly added to conversations for no goood reason other than this is the 20^th novel in the series. it's kind of like when all of those nods to previous bond movies were in die another day for the franchise's 40^th anniversary. i very nearly stopped reading it several pages back. but i will bravely plow though to the end.

i didn't notice a change to the avalon series by marion zimmer bradley after her passing. but maybe it's because; 1. diana l. paxson was her co-author on the last 3 before bradley passed. 2. i had not re-read the series at least twice like i have with the peabody series. 3. was not in the middle of yet another re-read of the series like i am with this one. 4. or a big fan of the avlaon series like i am with the peabody series.

tl;dr only read this novel if you want to complete the series. but it might disappoint fans of the amelia peabody novels.