I purchased The Painted Queen expecting the same level of writing I came to expect from Ms. Peters. What a disappointment! The characters, especially the males, were extremely out of character and many comments were made that were false. Ramses never gave himself the sobriquet "brother of demons' and certainly never shouted it at people to intimidate them. Nefret was not a blonde. Emerson seemed unsure of himself and whenever she got herself into stupid situations he nearly cried when recovering her, telling her he could not live without her. Ramses never used a very coarse and vulgar word which I won't mention. According to a previous book there were no crocodiles left in the Nile. Sethos behaves in a silly and ineffectual way and Abdullah would never have told Amelia he was ready to give up on her, she would insist on going "on her merry way". And more... One would believe the author never even read the other books. There was effort put into this but I think the bottom line is she simply does not have the same personality and mindset Ms. Peters had. I didn't keep the book.