"I am that Messiah they expect—I have arrived—I have had to suffer loneliness and sometimes the humiliation as I saw people showing their disgust at my form. I am that Messiah sent to change the world and let everyone know that Aten is the true god."
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The Magnificent Heresy by Royston Moore Trafford Publishing
book review by Wendy Strain
With several historical fiction novels to his credit, it is reasonable to expect The Magnificent Heresy to offer an insightful journey through ancient Egypt as the author seeks to set the historical record straight. Some years ago, Royston discovered approximately five hundred years of history in Egypt are missing from the larger record. It was this discovery that prompted Royston's first novel. Rather than deliver a long lecture on the topic, Royston has opted to tell the story in a more narrative form.
Through the pages of the book, Royston attempts to provide his readers with a sense of who the major figures were and the roles they played as Egypt's eighteenth dynasty came to an end. Tracing their progress from the disputed identity of the rightful heiress through to the death of the final player, Royston alternates between dialogue, description and historical commentary to tell his story. At times, his characters really do take on a semblance of life. Unfortunately, this appearance is often short-lived.
One of the problems faced by the author was attempting to keep the various characters separated from each other in the readers' minds, a point made particularly difficult by the Egyptian tendency to repeat names in successive generations. A more difficult area was weaving the newly discovered history into the known record and placing it in proper context with historical events occurring outside of Egypt. The end result is stilted storytelling peppered with incomplete lecture.