One of the first civilizations my daughter and I are learning about while
homeschooling world history is Ancient Egypt. It’s an interesting culture,
there are lots of cool artifacts and monuments left by them to study and
it’s useful for teaching how to study a civilization in terms of government,
social issues, geography, the role of religion and mythology, etc. We came
to the conclusion that the Egyptians were a very visually-oriented people,
extremely pragmatic in their thinking and not inward-directed or concerned
about abstract concepts or philosophical questions. They developed extensive
canal irrigation and water control systems, indoor plumbing, built the
pyramids and carried on extensive trade, all with a clumsy writing system
that left most people illiterate and, compared to the Greeks, an
unsophisticated system of mathematics.

As an educational tool, historical fiction is useful for making the reality
of the times come alive in human terms. Temples that we see as fascinating
archeological artifacts were real places with sights and smells and sounds
that are hard to imagine unless you are given a story to place them in. So
we are reading some fiction as a way to make the history come alive for my
daughter.

Mara is the first of these novels. It’s set in the reign of Queen
Hatshepsut, the only female pharaoh in Egyptian history. Mara is a slave
girl, bought by one of the Queen’s advisors to use as a spy in the inner
chambers of Thutmose III, the Queen’s heir. Thutmose has been affianced to a
Syrian princess who speaks only Babylonian and since Mara has been owned by
a scribe she is fluent in that language. Her role is to translate for the
princess when she speaks with Thutmose and report back to the Queen’s
advisor on anything amiss that she may hear. The conflict comes when she
inadvertently falls in love with a young lord loyal to Thutmose who is involved in
a plot to depose the Queen and put Thutmose in his rightful place on the
throne. Her personal loyalties lie with Thutmose, but her owner will kill her if
she betrays the Queen.

It’s a good story, well told. The general background history is believable
though I went back and read a bit on the reign of the Hatshepsut and
Thutmose III and had to point out to my daughter repeatedly where the
history ended and the fiction began. McGraw played a bit fast and loose with
reality to build the tension in the story, which is ok for fiction as long
as the reader understands the difference. It did serve to bring an ancient
culture to life, particularly in the daily life of the temples and the
common people.