Cinderella Week // Mara Daughter of the Nile

Hello everybody! Hope everyone had a great week! It's Friday, yippee!

Sooo....today, I'll be doing a review on Mara, Daughter of the Nile by Eloise Jarvis McGraw for Heidi's Cinderella Week. You can check out her bee-yew-ti-ful blog here.

Just to let you know, I have never done a book review/summary before and I'm not too sure of the "rules" if there are any! So hopefully this won't be too horribly done! :) I'll give alerts if there are any spoilers..... ;)

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Imagine that there are two sides to a war. You are caught right in the very middle of it; and you end up being on both sides all at once. If you help one side, you will die. If you help the other side, your best friend (maybe even more than just a best friend) dies. What do you do?

Well, this is exactly the situation that Mara struggles with. It's a battle between loyalty and freedom for this young girl! Witty, beautiful, and proud young Mara has been a slave all of her life. She longs and dreams of freedom everyday. So when the chance of freedom finally brushes by her, she snatches at it. She doesn't care if it's offered by the hard-faced, cruel Lord Nahereh. Of course there's a catch to this. To earn her freedom, Mara must act as interpreter for Innani, the Syrian princess that the Queen of Egypt has chosen for her imprisoned brother, Thutmose. Nahereh commands her to listen and observe any movement at all during Innani's interviews with Thutmose, in other words, Mara will be a spy of the Queen. Despite his warning that it could mean her destruction, Mara instantly agrees, for freedom is worth anything, isn't it?

So she thinks until that fateful day when she meets Sheftu. One of the wittiest men on the face of the earth, and the loyalest friend to Thutmose. Sheftu believes that Thutmose is the rightful heir of Egypt and he is dedicated to restoring the throne to him. Mara gets caught up in Sheftu's plans and before she knows it, she is a spy again, but this time for the king's side. Due to some shrewdness on her part, Sheftu sends Mara as an interpreter for Inanni, not knowing that Nahereh has already hired her as interpreter.

But instead of betraying Sheftu at the first chance she got, Mara decides to "play both ends against the middle- serve both, meanwhile serving only herself. Then, when the cat jumped, she would jump with it!"*quote taken from Mara, Daughter of the Nile* So during her time with Inanni, Mara juggles between Lord Nahereh and Sheftu, managing to satisfy them both with information, yet not enough to discover her secret.

In the next few weeks, while Thutmose and Sheftu are secretly building up an army of followers, Mara finds herself pulling farther and farther away from Naherah, but falling closer and closer to Sheftu! No matter how hard she tries, her feelings for Sheftu grow more and more each day. But before she can tell him so and pledge full allegiance to the king (and Sheftu! :D), her secret is discovered. War breaks out, endangering not only Mara's life, but also the fate of Egypt.

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Okay....where do I start?!? Eloise Jarvis McGraw is one of my favourite authors. Her writing is very appealing, it makes you fall right into the flow of the story almost instantly! There is hardly ever a boring place, she keeps you on your toes throughout the entire plot.

*the following paragraph contains A SPOILER*
Knowing that this is a Cinderella week and the prince and princess pretty much ALWAYS end up together, you have guessed that Mara and Sheftu married, right? Well, okay, the author didn't SAY that they actually got married, but it was implied, which is just about as good as saying that they married! :D The relationship between Mara and Sheftu is very . . . interesting! ;) I would not consider it "lovey-dovey" at all! In the beginning, it's mostly a "can I trust you" sort of relationship because Mara is, well, basically, spying on Sheftu, and Sheftu doesn't know if he can trust Mara, who he thinks is just a runaway slave, with his secrets and plots to restore the king to his throne. The two quarrel and bicker almost every time they're together, yet somehow manage to maintain a close friendship with each other. A lot like Beatrice and Benedick from Much Ado About Nothing.
*end of paragraph. Spoiler over ;) *

Hatshepshut is the Egyptian queen who imprisoned her brother, Thutmose III in order that she might reign. She was one of the very few females that actually became a Pharaoh in Egypt. I read about her in history class and I really did like her. I mean, a female as king is pretty amazing! But Ms. McGraw managed to turn my feelings against her with her writing :P In this novel, Hatshepshut is portrayed as the antagonist, the one against Mara and Sheftu and Thutmose. The "bad guy". The author makes her seem sooo evil. I suppose you could consider her as the wicked stepmother, if you wanted ;)

Thutmose, though he could be considered a main character in the book, is not as easy to relate to. To be perfectly honest, I personally think the plot revolves mainly around Mara and Sheftu. The battle for the throne between Thutmose and Hatshepshut is more like the stuff that ties the plot together.  But anyway, back to the character. He is described as restless and longing to be free, and yeah, of course he's wanting to get his throne back. But here's the thing. Though he is the king/prince in this book, he is not THE prince in the "Cinderella sense".  That special title goes to Sheftu. One thing I don't particularly like about Thutmose is the way he acts toward Innani, his Canaanite bride-to-be. True, his sister is making him marry this "barbarian" only to humiliate him, but still, I don't think it would excuse his actions toward Innani. He acts very cool and . . . well, almost rude toward her. He calls her a couple of names, but says it in Egyptian so that, of course, Innani has no idea whatsoever what he's saying. Mara, as interpreter, feels sorry for Innani and translates something completely different to what Thutmose actually says. Which then causes some humour and embarrassment on both Mara and Thutmose's part. But if you want to find out what, you'll have to read the book yourself ;)

Innani is the Syrian/Canaanite princess that Hatshepshut "ordered" for her brother to marry. She is kind, funny, and very shy. She is completely astonished at basically everything in Egypt. Mara at first thinks her very shallow, but as she gets to know Innani better, she finds out that Innani is so much more!

Mara. How on earth does one describe her?!? She's an amazing person. She's extremely smart and very quick in thinking.  She has longed for freedom for so long, and yet when it's finally offered to her, she scorns it. I was close to tears reading that part. Mara is so very brave and loyal, not at all what you would have expected when you first met her at the beginning of the book. Her love for Sheftu is unquestionable. She feels sorry for poor, homesick Innani and tries to be as kind as possible to her,  even though she has to lie quite a few times during translations between Egyptian and Babylonian. I actually find it a little hard to connect her with Cinderella though. Cinderella is gentle, humble, and thinks the best of just about everyone. Mara, on the other hand, can be rough, is very proud, and has a hard time trusting anyone. There are a few times where she's gentle, like when she's with Innani, but she's not able to trust a single soul for quite awhile. Cinderella is the type of person you could make friends with easily. Mara is. . . definitely not so. Anyway, not at the beginning. Who knows? Maybe *SPOILER* after she married Sheftu *End of Spoiler* she became friendlier and it was easier to make friends with her!
Sheftu, Thutmose, Nekonkh (the river captain) and many others call Mara "Blue Eyed One" or "Lotus Eyed One" because of her rare yet beautiful blue eyes. Eloise Jarvis McGraw describes them as lotus blue. I wonder if she means this blue:

Picture from Google

 this blue:

Picture from Google

 or this blue?:

Picture from Google

I studied the cover of the book I have, but the artist either put too much dark eye makeup so as to cover up the blue and make it invisible or he/she completely forgot to put it on, which is not nice at all because Mara's blue eyes do play a somewhat important part in the book. I think anyway ;) But since we're all Cinderella-y this week, I'll act like Cinderella and think the best of people: The artist just put too much eye makeup ;)

Sheftu is. . . hard to describe. He's one of my favourite characters, but yes, it is too hard to come up with a description that would "live up" to what he is. He's smart, he's proud, he's a lot like Mara, which is probably why they bicker so much. He has an unquestionable loyalty not only to his friend, the king, but also to his native country, Egypt. Because of the dangerous work that he's always associated with, he, like Mara, finds it hard to trust anyone. He's a noble, Lord Sheftu, in Hatshepshut's courts, but the king's group of followers know him as plain Sashai, the scribe's apprentice. That's about all I can say about him. But really, Sheftu is an awesome character!

Of course, there are a lot of other characters that I could talk about, like Nekonkh or Count Senmut, or Chadzar (*shudders* he's a cruel, cruel man, servant to Lord Nahereh), but I'l stop at Sheftu. Because otherwise, this post would go on, and on, and on, and on ;)

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this review and it makes you want to read this book. Because it's seriously one of the best books ever! :D

The Girl with the Rose-Red Slippers

Hello all! I was planning on doing a review on Mara Daughter of the Nile for Heidi's Cinderella Week today, but as it turns out, we're going skiing today, so change of plans! :) You remember how on Monday when I did the tag I mentioned an Egyptian version of Cinderella? Well, today, you all get to read it! This version comes from the book Tales of Ancient Egypt by Roger Lancelyn Green.

Hope you all enjoy it!

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In the last days of Ancient Egypt, not many years before the country was conquered by the Persians, she was ruled by a Pharaoh called Amasis. So as to strengthen his country against the threat of invasion by Cyrus of Persia, who was conquering all the known world, he welcomed as many Greeks as wished to trade with or settle in Egypt, and gave them a city called Naucratis to be entirely their own.

In Naucratis, not far from the mouth of the Nile that flows into the sea at Canopus, there lived a wealthy Greek merchant called Charaxos. His true home was in the island of Lesbos, and the famous poetess Sappho was his sister; but he had spent most of his life trading with Egypt, and in his old age he settled at Naucratis.

One day when he was walking in the marketplace he saw a great crowd gathered round the place where the slaves were sold. Out of curiosity he pushed his way into their midst, and found that everyone was looking at a beautiful girl who had just been set up on the stone rostrum to be sold.

She was obviously a Greek with white skin and cheeks like blushing roses, and Charaxos caught his breath - for he had never seen anyone so lovely.

Consequently, when the bidding began, Charaxos determined to buy her and, being one of the wealthiest merchants in all Naucratis, he did so without much difficulty.

When he had bought the girl, he discovered that her name was Rhodopis and that she had been carried away by pirates from her home in the north of Greece when she was a child. They had sold her to a rich man who employed many slaves on the island of Samos, and she had grown up there, one of her fellow slaves being an ugly little man called Aesop who was always kind to her and told her the most entrancing stories and fables about animals and birds and human beings.

But when she was grown up, her master wished to make some money out of so beautiful a girl and had sent her to rich Naucratis to be sold.

Charaxos listened to her tale and pitied her deeply. Indeed very soon he became quite besotted about her. He gave her a lovely house to live in, with a garden in the middle of it, and slave girls to attend on her. He heaped her with presents of jewels and beautiful clothes, and spoiled her as if she had been his own daughter.

One day a strange thing happened as Rhodopis was bathing in the marble-edged pool in her secret garden. The slave-girls were holding her clothes and guarding her jeweled girdle and her rose-red slippers of which she was particularly proud, while she lazed in the cool water - for a summer's day even in the north of Egypt grows very hot about noon.

Suddenly when all seemed quiet and peaceful, an eagle came swooping down out of the clear blue sky - down, straight down as if to attack the little group by the pool. The slave-girls dropped everything they were holding and fled shrieking to hide among the trees and flowers of the garden; and Rhodopis rose from the water and stood with her back against the marble fountain at one end of it, gazing with wide, startled eyes.

But the eagle paid no attention to any of them. Instead, it swooped right down and picked up one of her rose-red slippers in its talons. Then it soared up into the air again on its great wings and, still carrying the slipper, flew away to the south over the valley of the Nile.

Rhodopis wept at the loss of her rose-red slipper, feeling sure that she would never see it again, and sorry also to have lost anything that Charaxos had given to her.

But the eagle seemed to have been sent by the gods - perhaps by Horus himself whose sacred bird he was. For he flew straight up the Nile to Memphis and then swooped, down towards the palace.

At that hour Pharaoh Amasis sat in the great courtyard doing justice to his people and hearing any complaints that they wished to bring.

Down over the courtyard swooped the eagle and dropped the rose-red slipper of Rhodopis into Pharaoh's lap.

The people cried out in surprise when they saw, this, and Amasis too was much taken aback. But, as he took up the little rose-red slipper and admired the delicate workmanship and the tiny size of it, he felt that the girl for whose foot it was made must indeed be one of the loveliest in the world.

Indeed Amasis the Pharaoh was so moved by what had happened that he issued a decree:

"Let my messengers go forth through all the cities of the Delta and, if need be, into Upper Egypt to the very borders of my kingdom. Let them take with them this rose-red slipper which the divine bird of Horus has brought to me, and let them declare that her from whose foot this slipper came shall be the bride of Pharaoh!"

Then the messengers prostrated themselves crying, 'Life, health, strength be to Pharaoh! Pharaoh has spoken and his command shall be obeyed!'

So they set forth from Memphis and went by way of Heliopolis and Tanis and Canopus until they came to Naucratis. Here they heard of the rich merchant Charaxos and of how he had bought the beautiful Greek girl in the slave market, and how he was lavishing all his wealth upon her as if she had been a princess put in his care by the gods.

So they went to the great house beside the Nile and found Rhodopis in the quiet garden beside the pool.

When they showed her the rose-red slipper she cried out in surprise that it was hers. She held out her foot so that they could see how well it fitted her; and she bade one of the slave girls fetch the pair to it which she had kept carefully in memory of her strange adventure with the eagle.

Then the messengers knew that this was the girl whom Pharaoh had sent them to find, and they knelt before her and said, 'The good god Pharaoh Amasis - life, health, strength be to him! - bids you come with all speed to his palace at Memphis. There you shall be treated with all honor and given a high place in his Royal House of Women: for he believes that Horus the son of Isis and Osiris sent that eagle to bring the rose-red slipper and cause him to search for you.'

Such a command could not be disobeyed. Rhodopis bade farewell to Charaxos, who was torn between joy at her good fortune and sorrow at his loss, and set out for Memphis.

And when Amasis saw her beauty, he was sure that the gods had sent her to him. He did not merely take her into his Royal House of Women, he made her his Queen and the Royal Lady of Egypt. And they lived happily together for the rest of their lives and died a year before the coming of Ambyses the Persian.

Cinderella Party // The Tag

As you all probably know from previous posts, Heidi is hosting a grand Cinderella Party!!

Part of the many things you get to do there is a tag, so here goes! :)

1. In the vast array of fairytale heroines, what particular character qualities most define Cinderella? 
Hmm...well, the characteristics that I usually connect with Cinderella are patience, good-will, and a readiness to serve anyone and everyone. 

2. What are some of the deeper, big picture differences you see between retellings where both stepsisters are nasty and others where one is nasty and one is kind? How do you think the two takes differently develop/illuminate/affect Cinderella’s character and also the overarching story itself?

I think Cinderella's situation is shown as more ....lonely and dreadful when there are two nasty stepsisters. When there is one evil one and one kind one, Cinderella isn't as lonely, she does have a friend in one of her sisters. In one, Cinderella needs a ton of patience, with hardly anything to reward her until the very end. In the other, she still does need patience, but at least she can be helped a teensy bit by her other sister. Just a very teeny bit, but still, it's help! :D

3. Are you an animal lover? Would you eagerly count mice, lizards, cows, and geese as friends? Dogs and cats? 

Yes, I an animal lover! I love my dog Maple (she's sooo cute, and I call her Puppy even though she's already 6 years old and considered quite an adult ;) ) and I think I would like cats, especially kittens, but I'm not too sure since I've never had one. We almost bought one once, but then we found out that some family members were allergic to cats :( So we never did get one. (But once I have my own house/apartment, I think I'll have a dog and cat to keep me company :)) And yes, I like lizards, and snakes, and cows, and geese. And most mice. I used to take care of three teeny weeny baby mice that we found in our pool last year. And a very cute, round little mole that was also found in our pool :)

Oh yes. And little birdies too :) 

4. After asking question #3, I realized how remarkably many of the adaptations I’ve seen have Cinderella either horseback riding or involved with horses. Have you ever ridden? If so, have you ever ridden sidesaddle or bareback? 

Yes, I have ridden horses before! Tiger Lily and I used to take lessons a loooong time ago. Never sidesaddle (don't think I could stay on like that :P) or bareback. I think it was called English riding. Definitely not Western, though I would love to learn how to do that!

5. Your favorite Cinderella dress/s? 

Mmm...either the 2015 Cinderella ball gown, or Danielle's butterfly gown (that I had previously been calling a swan dress for some reason or other :P)

6. Do you ever think of Cinderella while doing your household chores? :)

Ummm....not usually!

7. What major character traits do you think are essential in a faithful prince? 

Well, I think some such traits of a faithful prince would be selflessness, protectiveness for his princess :), and loving her for who she truly is. A pure heart is also another good trait. If that can be considered a trait! Things he can not ever be is spoiled, selfish, and immature. EVER!!

8. Your top THREE favorite fairy tales (as in the original folk tales, not adaptations). 

Rapunzel, The Constant Tin Soldier, and Little Red Riding Hood. There is also Isis and Orisis/Horus the Avenger that is a great favourite of mine too. And a short Egyptian story similar to Cinderella, maybe I'll post it sometime this week :) 

9. Your top FIVE current favorite fairy tale/legend type films (BESIDES any Cinderella adaptations). 

Tangled, Frozen, Enchanted (2007, not Ella Enchanted!), Beauty and the Beast, Mulan, and the Little Mermaid. Oops, that was six, sorry ;)

10. If you could play Cinderella and the story could be set in any region of the world and any time period, what would you pick? And what would your dream ‘ball gown’ for it be like? 
Hmm....places would be either England, or Ireland. ( Imagine an Irish Cinderella! :D ) Time Period: Romantic era....just raise the dresses a bit lots!!, please! :) As for a gown, I would love to wear the Lily James' Cinderella dress, or Danielle's ball gown. But with a couple alterations, for example, extra covering! ;) 

11. And (purely for fun :))… what color/s do you immediately associate with Cinderella?

BLUE!!! 

Calling all Cinderella Lovers!!

Hello all! Hope you've had a great start to a new week! :D Just wanted to let you all know, Heidi from Along the Brandywine is hosting a Cinderella Week and it starts TODAY!!! You should seriously go over and see her blog! It's so delightfully blue and sparkly and ... Cinderella-y! :D There are giveaways (with some amazing prizes) tags, movie and book reviews, and lots more going on!

Hope you all decide to check it out! You won't regret it, I assure you! :)

Cinderella's Announcement

Cinderella has an announcement to make! But I'll let her tell you all. Switching over to you, Cinderella! :) 

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 I think that I shouldn't be Cinderella 'cause she DOES NOT HAVE BLACK HAIR, don't you think? 

My name (Now ) is Snow White. 

Princess Photo Shoot! :)

My cousins, my sisters, and I decided to do a photo shoot with dress up clothes and it was so much fun! Here are the pictures! :)

Preparing for the shoot

Mirror Shot

Silly Mirror Shot. :) See the other girls getting ready? 

I was waiting for the girls - I mean princesses - and decided to take
photos of the setting. I'm not too good at the styling and dressing
stuff. . . that's more on Tiger Lily's line. She loves dressing up and
styling hair. So when we got ready to go to our cousins' house, I prepared
my cameras and she prepared her hair accessories, ribbons, earrings, etc. 

Yay! They're ready for picture taking! :)

How To | Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies. . . with Cinderella :)

Today Cinderella and I had an exciting adventure together. . . baking cookies! She did pretty much everything by herself, I only helped her with the measurements and the oven.

I'm also making this into a How To post, just for fun! :)

So let's get started!

You need. . .

1 cup of butter

3/4 cups of brown sugar

1/3 cup of white sugar

2 large eggs

1 teaspoon of vanilla

1 teaspoon of baking soda and 2 teaspoons of hot water mixed together

2 1/2 cups of flour

1 cup of chocolate chips. Well, the recipe asks for only 3/4 cups of chips, but we like lots of chips. . . 

And one happy baker! :)

First add the butter and both sugars into a mixing bowl

and stir it up 

until it looks like this. 

Add in the eggs

and stir that up well. 

Add the vanilla

and let the batter mix for about 2 minutes. 

Umm. . . ? 

"I'm not doing anything. . ."

"Well, since I don't think anyone's looking. . ." 

Add in all the flour. . .

And do NOT turn the mixer on full speed. Looks like I forgot to tell Cinderella that :P Oh well, it adds excitement, doesn't it? :)

Now the batter's done! Let's scoop them into nice round balls and lay them on a tray. 

Change of minds. Let's use ice cream scoops instead. SO much easier! :)

Toblerone. . . !

"Don't worry, I'm not touching, see?"

"I'm innocent! (I hope she doesn't see the chocolate
on my mouth!)"

Put the cookies in an oven. The oven should be preheated to 350 degrees. The cookies will take 10 - 20 minutes to cook. 

Yay! They're done! Now place the cookies on a cooling rack. 

And you're done!

Mmmm. . .