Summary

Reading Tomb of the Sun King is like going all the way Egypt just to take a selfie in front of a pyramid, getting "coffee" at a local Starbucks, buying a "Nefertiti Was THAT Bitch" t-shirt, and then taking a video of yourself getting fucked on a sarcophagus just to post it on Instagram. Alex Picard's performance is the only reason I'm continuing this book.

9.3.2025

Chapters 26 thru 32 …

Constance is saving this book for me. Sort of.

Seriously, y’all … if I hear one more line about how unbelievably attractive some guy is or how the ancient statues are all worn away EXCEPT for their large penises or how the camels they are riding have big penises or anything else that has absolutely NO BEARING on the adventure or the whole point of this book … I really will have to quit on this entire series. At this point The Raiders of the Arcana series is about horny women who think of nothing but sex and the men who also do the same … it used to be about finding magical artifacts but I get the impression that no one really cares about that unless it’s a magical vibrator.

I understand that this book is a mix of a few things … including feminism and women’s sexuality. I understand that Ellie represents a fully realized woman who has a career she loves, a man she loves, a healthy libido and isn’t just some stuffy, sexless academic like Evelyn in The Mummy. The Mummy was kind of a family friendly film with ZERO blood and ZERO sexual references and was just a pure adventure story. There is nothing wrong with that and there is nothing wrong with platonic partners who adventure together either. It comes down to taste.

What I have a problem with is that the focus seems to be on the sex and not on the adventure in such unnecessary ways. Does Ellie need to ask how Adam knows the camel is a female? Does she need to look at the other camels and address the fact that they have big penises? Does that line need to be in the book? Does that scene even need to happen? Does Constance have to constantly be thinking about the fact that she needs a lover so she can experience sex before she gets married? Does Constance have to be commenting on every attractive man she sees as a potential mate? Does every man in the story have to be “unbelievably attractive”? The answer is no … these elements don’t have to exist for the book to be good and I know that because the first book was such a wonderfully balanced masterpiece of adventure and genuine romance … and this book is a desperate sex reference fest that is trying too hard to showcase “Hey, independent, scholarly women think about sex too” and it really isn’t necessary. The story is so interesting and exciting and just as intriguing of a mystery/adventure as the first book – more so even – that all of this extra sex stuff just RUINS IT for me.

Yes, women think about sex. Yes, women have libidos. Yes, women can be independent, academic, courageous and also want to jump on every penis they see. That’s great. What about the story though? Why do you have to interrupt every paragraph with something about sex or sexuality or desire for sex or mention of some man’s body, eyes, thighs, or some reference to a penis? Why do we need to know that Adam masturbates before he sleeps? What does this have to do with anything? Why is that necessary to know before the rest of the book can continue? Why is it in every chapter?

Well, not every chapter because thank god for Constance. The majority of the chapters lately have been about Constance and HER adventure. Similar to Ellie in the first book … Constance is the primary focus and the one doing all the adventuring. We finally get more of her amazing personality and find out that she is almost more interesting than Ellie. If there is one thing these last few chapters have solidified for me, it’s that Constance needs her own series. To be perfectly honest I pretty much forgot all about Ellie and Adam for a while.

I adore Constance in the way I first adored Ellie … and I want more of Constance’s adventures minus the penises if possible.

Story this session: 5.0 out of 5.0 stars5.0
Narration: 5.0 out of 5.0 stars5.0

8.26.2025

Chapters 1 thru 26 …

I didn’t listen to 26 chapters in one night. I’ve been reading this book ever since I posted my full review of the first book, Empire of Shadows, back on the 15th. The problem is I’ve been so utterly disappointed by this book that I haven’t felt like writing about it. My reaction to everything so far is just really exasperated and I wasn’t sure there was any point in trying to put that kind of frustration into words.

I listen to a lot of audiobooks and not all of them are enjoyable for me. Sometimes I write about why and sometimes I just don’t write anything at all because I don’t have anything positive to say about the experience. But … I like Jacquelyn’s world and her writing and I love the work of Alex Picard so very much and I want to give them the praise they deserve, where it’s deserved.

I’ll start with the bottom line: This series is no longer a series that “checks all of my boxes”. It’s not for me.

I have mentioned before that is difficult for me to find media that truly appeals to me or speaks to me across many areas. I have a lot of specific needs, difficulties, preferences, fetishes, and more that make any kind of truly mundane experience a kind of mixed bag for me. When it comes to books … there are things I WANT to read about and enjoy and there are things that I simply don’t want to take into myself and that make the experience feel just tedious or sometimes even gross or triggering.

Everyone exists in their own reality and what works for you will not always work for someone else.

What excites you will not always excite someone else.
What “does it” for you is not always going to “do it” for someone else.

The wonderful thing about art is that it can mean different things to the different people experiencing them and we can learn about people through how they express what art means to them.

As I’ve said … “reviews” of media tell you more about the person writing the review than they truly do about whatever is being reviewed. 99% of the time reviews are SUBJECTIVE experiences and not unbiased, analytical essays. That is why I have EXPERIENCES with art and I’m not “reviewing” them. This blog exists for me to share myself with the world, not to tell people that how I feel about books, movies, TV shows, cigars, or comics is they way THEY should feel about them.

So when I say this book isn’t for me … I mean it’s not written with someone like me in mind (and it shouldn’t be) and that what other people probably like about this book, is something that I often have a visceral aversion to. That is not the fault of the book or the author. That is also not something that makes me a bad person or my perspective invalid or critical. It just means I am different from the majority of people who like these kinds of books.

Different.
Not better, not worse, just different.
And it is ok to be different.

What’s not ok is criticizing other people or things for not being YOU or being like you. You are NOT the center. Your reality is not the only reality. Your fetishes are not everyone else’s fetishes. What you think is “normal” is not going to be the consensus and even if there is an “agreed upon normality”, not everyone is going to fit into it and they don’t deserve to be punished or persecuted for being or feeling different. Where we are in the world today is precisely because everyone is trying to inflict their “normal” upon everyone else.

All that said … people who think about sex all the time gross me out and I find it … dysregulated and kind of annoying. I’m not saying that a healthy libido is a bad thing or that being sexually attracted to people is wrong or weird or bad … but there is a kind of excessive and aggressive sexuality that I am really put off by and I don’t find it titillating when it’s the primary focus in nearly every part of a book … especially if the book doesn’t NEED to do that to be good.

Empire of Shadows was a wonderfully BALANCED book with amazing, well fleshed out and likeable characters. It had adventure, intrigue, mystery, conflicts, powerful socio-political commentary, wonderful romance, and even slow-burn sexual tension, and none of it felt excessive or unnecessary or gratuitous. Tomb of the Sun King might as well be renamed to “Tomb I Want To Fuck You Inside” and it’s so unfortunate because it sucks everything I loved about the series right out and flushes it down the toilet.

ALL Ellie and Adam care about and focus on is how BADLY they want to have sex, where they want to have sex, how they want to have sex, why they want to have sex, and why it sucks that they have to be married before the rest of the world will feel it’s ok for them to have sex. Nevermind the fact that there is a lot going on in the book that needs to be addressed and handled. Nevermind the fact that there are villains in the book trying to destroy the world. Nevermind the fact that there are mysteries to be uncovered that could change the perspective of how everyone sees the history of the world that they have been taught. When Ellie and Adam have chapters pertaining to them they contain a lot of focus on sex and the desire for sex including eluding to how Adam masturbates about Ellie before falling asleep.

It’s kind of like this all throughout:

• The Egyptian pyramid is beautiful, look at all those dark alcoves where I can push Ellie up against the wall.

• Maybe while we’re on this adventure and trying not to get killed by cultural artifact poachers I can find time to seduce Ellie’s brother and take him as a lover.

• This train ride is really long, thank god I have Adam’s body to drool over and wonder what it’s like underneath his clothes.

• We have to escape the gun-wielding lunatics who want to kill us but it’s so nice to be between Adam’s legs on this horse while we gallop away and parts of him press into me.

Are you understanding what I mean now? EVERY SINGLE CHAPTER is like this. EVERY SINGLE CHAPTER has sentences like this and sentiments like this. In the middle of shit going down someone is thinking about getting into someone’s pants or stroking their pectorals.

This kind of weird, inappropriateness happened ONCE in Empire of Shadows where, at the end of the book, Ellie and Adam are thrown into a hole in the ground and left to die and for some reason it seems to make perfect sense for them to start humping each other and pushing each other up against the stone walls while in waist deep water and kissing. Look y’all. I get it … the old “we might die, let’s express what we have been suppressing this whole time” kind of trope. But you’re in possibly spider infested, fetid water at the bottom of a pit and that’s the primary thing on your mind? Why is this happening right now? This kind of stuff just ruins stories for me and takes me out of the book completely. It was easy to kind of overlook because it only happened once and it was near the end of the book … but Tomb of the Sun King is like this EVERY SINGLE MOMENT and it’s not only distracting it’s getting RIDICULOUSLY repetitive.

We get it. YOU WANT TO FUCK. We get it. YOU ARE SEXUALLY ATTRACTED TO EACH OTHER. We get it. I swear we get it. We understood it in the last book. We understand it EVERY CHAPTER. We understand it every single time it’s your turn to give your perspective of the action in the story.

You know what I’m interested in?

• The mystery.
• The adventure.
• The socio-political landscape.
• The spiritual messaging.
• The commentary on inequality, racism, misogyny, and colonialism.
• The rich history and culture.
• The new characters being introduced.

I’m interested in SO MANY THINGS that this book is already about that how, when, where, and if Ellie and Adam have sex is just becoming an annoying and unfortunate detraction.

I get it though … other people find all that stuff boring and not as engaging as horny adventurers who think about sex in between everything that happens. I understand that. That is why this series is no longer for me. This book feels like a desperate attempt to keep certain readers interested in topics that would otherwise bore them. It feels like a great story being reduced to something utterly mundane for the sake of drumming up “BookTok” videos by people who only read books about rapey werewolves and toxic relationships between sociopaths.

Reading Tomb of the Sun King is like going all the way Egypt just to take a selfie in front of a pyramid, getting “coffee” at a local Starbucks, buying a “Nefertiti Was THAT Bitch” t-shirt, and then taking a video of yourself getting fucked on a sarcophagus just to post it on Instagram.

I want to hear Alex Picard’s amazing performance and that is the ONLY reason I’m continuing with this book.

Story this session: 2.0 out of 5.0 stars2.0
Narration: 5.0 out of 5.0 stars5.0