Farewell, beloved writer!

Oh, man, I read a bunch of the Amelia Peabody books a couple of years ago, and stalled out after the 6th one (or thereabouts). Good stuff.

I never finished the series. I suppose I might at some point.

And The Crying Child is new to me. Barbara Michaels and Elizabeth Peters are always good names to look for in used bookstores because there are just so many that I haven't gotten to yet, it's decent odds I'll be able to find something I haven't read before.

Oh, that's too bad. I read quite a few of her books, under both names, and quite enjoyed most.

My favorite thing about the Elizabeth Peters books might be her explanation that she wanted to read a Victorian adventure with a swashbuckling heroine and wasn't finding any, so she wrote one. That's a motivation I can appreciate.

I prefer the Elizabeth Peters because they have more of a sense of humor. The Barbara Michaels tends to fall into gothic romance traps, which annoy me now that I am old.

Oh, that's sad news. I love the Amelia Peabody books.

The Barbara Michaels tends to fall into gothic romance traps, which annoy me now that I am old.

What sort of gothic romance traps? The type that would amuse me, or would I roll my eyes a lot?

They have a better sense of humor and non-helpless-female than the standard gothic, and there are often supernatural elements that you'll enjoy. It's more in comparison to Elizabeth Peters that the differences show up. The Peters books are much more tongue-in-cheek about the tropes--mysterious castles, secret treasures, handsome heroes who may be villains. The Vicky Bliss books even has our heroine attempting to cash in the gothic/romance/thinly veiled erotica market by writing one with all the cliches she can think of.

The best way I can define the difference that I see is that I often finish a Michaels with a sense of "Oh, you didn't go for that cheesy ending, I absolutely know you can do better." She's--that is, she was, sigh--playing closer to the standard guidebook than she did under Elizabeth Peters. Heck, in one of the modern-era Peters, she mentions Barbara Michaels, but I can't remember if it's as an example of a run-of-the-mill writer or as one who's better than usual.

And of course, that's only as I see it.

I adored Barbara Mertz' work. I stumbled onto Elizabeth Peters in the library in the form of The Last Camel Died At Noon. Not knowing I was jumping into a series in the middle, I found myself very much unable to simply leave a book with that glorious title on the shelf. It was a brilliant introduction. The fact that I was also in the process of becoming friends with a woman in a nearby town who owned a mystery book shop, who knew the Amelia Peabody books and loved them too (she was an archaeologist before she settled down to sell books) cast a charm over this part of my life that would have otherwise been mostly heartbreak, hard work, and loneliness.

Thank you for many wonderful hours' holiday from workaday life, Doctor Mertz. Good night, dear Lady. A flight of angels wing thee to thy rest.

I also liked her Egyptology book Red Land, Black Land, written under her own name. I should find a copy of that.