Nefertiti’s Heart by A. W. Exley (Artifact Hunters; 1)

The Synopsis:

Cara Devon has always suffered curiosity and impetuousness, but tangling with a serial killer might cure that. Permanently.
London, 1861. Impoverished noble Cara has a simple mission after the strange death of her father – sell off his damned collection of priceless artifacts. Her plan goes awry when aristocratic beauties start dying of broken hearts, an eight inch long brass key hammered through their chests. A killer hunts amongst the nobility, searching for a regal beauty and an ancient Egyptian relic rumoured to hold the key to immortality.
Her Majesty’s Enforcers are in pursuit of the murderer and they see a connection between the gruesome deaths and Cara. So does she, somewhere in London her father hid Nefertiti’s Heart, a fist sized diamond with strange mechanical workings. Adding further complication to her life, notorious crime lord, Viscount Nathaniel Lyons is relentless in his desire to lay his hands on Cara and the priceless artifact. If only she could figure out his motive.
Self-preservation fuels Cara’s search for the gem. In a society where everyone wears a mask to hide their true intent, she needs to figure out who to trust, before she makes a fatal mistake.

I read this book on my own time from my own purchase and was not required to write a review. Therefore, all comments and opinions are entirely my own.

Review:

A breathless and exhilarating adventure inspired by Egyptian artifacts and legends.

There are few books that I am willing to spend an entire day reading, yet Nefertiti’s Heart demanded my attention from the very first page and I couldn’t put it down. Every time I thought I was coming up on a stopping point, something else happened and I was hooked all over again.

Cara is an instantly likable character and easy to sympathize with. Her story is rough but she handles it with a sort of fierce poise that makes her a unique main character. The additional characters are also incredibly developed and not just “page fillers”, they each have stories and are just as interesting as Cara is.

The story itself is just..Wow. Unpredictable, exciting, and perfectly paced. Every scene is significant to the ending and weaves in and out of each other until the final “aha!” moment, in which everything is pulled taut and perfectly connects all of the dots.

However, it pains me that there was so much other content thrown in that my rating will witness a several star reduction. There is a surprisingly low amount of cursing, however, the killing scenes are very high in detail and well described. There are mentions of abuse, rape (though not shown), and drinking. But the main reason for the star reduction is the sexual comments/thoughts, multiple extremely detailed kissing scenes, and three graphic sex scenes.

If the sexual content had been considerably reduced (not necessarily omitted because the romance is significant to the storyline; but we could have known what they were doing without such intricate details…) this book would have received a full 5 stars. However, because of the multiple sex scenes, I’m only inclined to give Nefertiti’s Heart 2 out of 5 stars and only recommend it your own risk (because the story really is amazing!).