Egypt’s Golden Couple: When Akhenaten and Nefertiti Were Gods on Earth

Nefertiti, Akhenaten, and Tutankhamun are familiar names to many. The Darnells, a husband-and-wife team of Egyptologists (authors of Tutankhamun’s Armies) offer a new analysis of the lives of Akhenaten and Nefertiti, parents of King Tutankhamun, adding to and challenging established research. The authors’ historical documentation is beautifully enhanced by vignettes of Nefertiti and Akhenaten—imagining, for instance, how they might have felt on the day of their son’s coronation or their daughter’s funeral. Narrated by Roshelle Simpson, these vignettes are so cinematic and rich that listeners may feel as though they are watching a multipart docuseries. Simpson’s pacing is perfectly attuned to the text, and she reads with a wonder and awe that matches the Darnells’ writing. While much of the book is well suited to audio, narration of the translated hieroglyphs is a bit jarring, as the narrator reads each punctuation mark, including the brackets that indicate missing words.