Which Bad Girl of the Ancient World are you?

Please welcome author Stephanie Dray to my blog today. Stephanie is a local author who I had the great fortune to meet at the Baltimore Book Festival. I was already a fan of hers after reading LILY OF THE NILE last year, and I was super excited to have her hand me a copy of her latest book, SONG OF THE NILE. Check back tomorrow for my review of her new book!

Which Bad Girl of the Ancient World are you?

by

Stephanie Dray

One of the favorite presentations I give is entitled Bad Girls of the Ancient World. I love to give this talk, because most of the powerful women in the ancient world have some sort of relation to the heroine of my novel, Cleopatra Selene.

Selene wasn’t, herself, a bad girl. At least, she was never vilified the way her mother before her had been. She had a nearly unblemished personal reputation, in spite of some of the provocative things she did--many of which I explore in my new novel, Song of the Nile.

But just because she doesn’t come down to us as one of the bad girls of history doesn’t mean she was a pushover. And thinking about how they may have inspired her began to inspire me to think about who I might have been like in the ancient world.

To that end, I’ve created this fun little quiz specially for this guest blog appearance, and I’d love to discuss the results with your readers. So, here you have it. WHICH BAD GIRL OF THE ANCIENT WORLD ARE YOU?

[Heather's Note: Ends up I am Cleopatra VII - what fun! Please share your results in the comments and let me know if you think they are accurate!]

Bio
Stephanie graduated from Smith, a small women’s college in Massachusetts where–to the consternation of her devoted professors–she was unable to master Latin. However, her focus on Middle Eastern Studies gave her a deeper understanding of the consequences of Egypt’s ancient clash with Rome, both in terms of the still-extant tensions between East and West as well as the worldwide decline of female-oriented religion.
Before she wrote novels, Stephanie was a lawyer, a game designer, and a teacher. Now she uses the transformative power of magic realism to illuminate the stories of women in history and inspire the young women of today. She remains fascinated by all things Roman or Egyptian and has–to the consternation of her devoted husband–collected a house full of cats and ancient artifacts.

Blurb
Sorceress. Seductress. Schemer. Cleopatra’s daughter has become the emperor’s most unlikely apprentice and the one woman who can destroy his empire…

Having survived her perilous childhood as a royal captive of Rome, Selene pledged her loyalty to Augustus and swore she would become his very own Cleopatra. Now the young queen faces an uncertain destiny in a foreign land.

Forced to marry a man of the emperor’s choosing, Selene will not allow her new husband to rule in her name. She quickly establishes herself as a capable leader in her own right and as a religious icon. Beginning the hard work of building a new nation, she wins the love of her new subjects and makes herself vital to Rome by bringing forth bountiful harvests.

But it’s the magic of Isis flowing through her veins that makes her indispensable to the emperor. Against a backdrop of imperial politics and religious persecution, Cleopatra’s daughter beguiles her way to the very precipice of power. She has never forgotten her birthright, but will the price of her mother’s throne be more than she’s willing to pay?

Berkley Trade October 2011 (Trade Paperback)
# ISBN-10: 0425243044
# ISBN-13: 9780425243046

Purchase Info
Amazon
B&N
IndieBound
Constellation Books (Heather's Note: This is our local indie!)
Powell's

What Kind of Reader Are You?

I saw this quiz posted over at The Bookworm and Open Mind, Insert Book. My results are accurate but a bit funny all the same.

What Kind of Reader Are You? Your Result: Literate Good Citizen You read to inform or entertain yourself, but you're not nerdy about it. You've read most major classics (in school) and you have a favorite genre or two.
Obsessive-Compulsive Bookworm
Dedicated Reader
Book Snob
Fad Reader
Non-Reader
What Kind of Reader Are You? Quiz Created on GoToQuiz

What really makes me laugh is that Literate Good Citizen BARELY won out over the three way tie between Obsessive-Compulsive Reader/Dedicated Reader/Book Snob.

There were some questions that I could have answered differently so I took the quiz again. This time Obsessive-Compulsive Reader topped the list: You're probably in the final stages of a Ph.D. or otherwise finding a way to make your living out of reading. You are one of the literati. Other people's grammatical mistakes make you insane. How true, how true! Except for the Ph.D part of course.

A few different answers resulted in Dedicated Reader topping the list: You are always trying to find the time to get back to your book. You are convinced that the world would be a much better place if only everyone read more. Now THAT is totally me.

And finally, a few more tweaks brough Book Snob to the top: You like to think you're one of the literati, but actually you're just a snob who can read. You read mostly for the social credit you can get out of it. Oh no! This is most certainly NOT me.

So really what this quiz is telling me is that I have split-personality disorder when it comes to books. Go figure!

But anyway, that was fun. If you take the quiz be sure to leave me a comment with your results.

An Exacting Reader Am I

I don't usually post quizzes on here but when the results are so exactly right I get a bit excited.

According to this quiz on Book Browse ...

My Reading Personality: Exacting Reader!

The expression 'so many books, so little time!' sums up your life. You love books but you rarely have as much time to read as you'd like - so you're very particular about the books you choose.

That totally hit the nail on the head! I couldn't have described me better myself.

If you take the quiz, be sure to post a comment here letting me know how it turned out. Did it caputure your reading personality correctly?

Results of my Bookmark Poll, and Read at Work!

For the past month or so I've been running a poll over in my right sidebar. A total of 70 people voted; since you could choose more than one option, there are 79 total votes. Here's a recap of the results ...

What do you use to mark your place in a book?

• A traditional bookmark = 20 votes = 28%
• a clip-on bookmark = 5 votes = 7%
  
• a turned-down page corner = 9 votes = 12%
  
• whatever is handy at the time = 39 votes = 55%
  
• other = 6 votes = 8%

In case you're curious, MY answers were a turned-down page corner (shame on me, I know, but I only do that in used books) or whatever is handy at the time.

Personally, I'm curious about the OTHER answers. I really wanted responders to be able to fill in their OTHER answer, but I couldn't figure out how to make it work. As for me, I use a paper clips sometimes, and my dad always uses rubber bands which he stretches around the binding of the book and between the pages he wants to mark - have you ever heard of anyone else doing that?!

What's the weirdest thing you ever used as a bookmark? My honest answer - and this goes along with "whatever is handy at the time" - is a travel sized sanitary napkin, the kind in the yellow wrapper, that I had in my purse. Yep, that's pretty odd (and probably more than you really wanted to know about me). Do you have a better one?

...

I came across a cool post at Kimbooktu about a great way to read while you're at work. You've got to check it out! My only wish is that there were more books on there.

...

I left for Boston today for a busy wedding weekend but I still managed to bring along several books. I'm hoping for at least SOME reading time! Here's what I brought:

• Unholy Grail - my current book club book, meeting is on July 20
• Dracula - printed through Project Gutenberg, for Irresistible Review Challenge
  
• Why the Wind Blows - received from Online Publicist for review
  

We'll see how far I get with those ...

Oh, and I promise to post a few pics of kiddo as the ring bearer. I can't wait to show you the cool shirt we got for him!

What Book Are You?

Today is Memorial Day and I'm out celebrating with my family. I posted my Memorial Day thoughts on Friday in case I didn't get to the computer today. Click here if you'd like to read that post. I also did another post in memorial of a fallen soldier.

I'm happily awaiting the mail these days, since I've got 5 - count 'em, FIVE! - books on the way to me! Thanks to bookclubgirl, I'm getting a copy of Stone Creek (actually it arrived on Friday - woohoo!). Thanks to Lisa Roe (onlinebookpublicist) I'm getting Live Your Road Trip Dream and Why the Wind Blows to review. And by using my points at PaperbackSwap I'm getting Cane River and The Planets. Those are a few of the reviews you can expect to see over the next month or two. Plus all the books I ALREADY have need to be read as well. Hmmm ... where will I find the time? No worries - I'm sure I can handle it!

So I took this quiz to find out what kind of book I am (how much fun is that?!). Turns out, I'm The Guns of August. Who new?! I've never read this before, but I did do an audio book by Barbara Tuchman which I thought was fascinating. And I do completely agree with the description of me ... pretty cool, huh?

You're The Guns of August!

by Barbara Tuchman

Though you're interested in war, what you really want to know is what
causes war. You're out to expose imperialism, militarism, and nationalism for what they
really are. Nevertheless, you're always living in the past and have a hard time dealing
with what's going on today. You're also far more focused on Europe than anywhere else in
the world. A fitting motto for you might be "Guns do kill, but so can
diplomats."


Take the Book Quiz
at the Blue Pyramid.

If you do the quiz, post a link to your results in the comment section, or just let me know what book you are.