This is book two in a series. The premise of this book is so intriguing. It is written so well. The characters are well developed. Perfect book for middle grade readers

Enjoyable books perfect for middle grade children that really grip and let your imagination play. Fun reads and humorous

The formatting for one with words running together made it difficult to read. I read 30% outloud to my son and it didn't capture his attention, I would class it more upper middle class not really suited to reading to a nearly 8 year old unfortunately. We wanted to love it because a character has the same name as my son (aidan) but we struggled.

Nothing will have me reading a book faster than time travel and history and this book has both!

This is honestly such a great read and reminded me of my love of Egyptian history! There’s a focus on archaeology that was pleasantly surprising and I enjoyed seeing and I loved the blend of puzzles and heists that had big National Treasure energy!

I think this is going to be a favourite series of mine and I’m actually going to go out and buy the physical copies for my collection!

”I haven’t read the first book in the series so it was all new to me, characters and settings.
I think this book can still be read as a standalone though because the friendship is described easy and you can understand who is who and they are good at throughout the book.
I enjoyed the mix of adventure and suspense moments. Time traveling sounds like an interesting concept and because I have learned about Ancient Egypt not long ago in school, this was so good to remind myself about some facts that are happening in here.
The mix of real life facts with the fictional world is done so good that I could see myself there with them and being part of the group.
Tutankhamen is probably one of the most known person and his tomb is the most talked about one.
I loved the book and read in in just 3 days even if it is like 300 pages, it is so engaging. “

🐈-Olimpia

The Mummy’s Curse is another fantastic time travelling adventure for The Butterfly Club. This time to the Valley of The Kings to try and discover the tomb of Tutankhamen.

As well as the physical and mental challenges of trying to escape a pyramid puzzle chamber and various plagues, there is also the emotional side of their journey to deal with expressed through their friendship as a group and the encounters with the new characters they meet.

The Mummy’s Curse is an impressive mix of historical fact and fiction that made for a tense and thrilling read, especially with the added mystical atmosphere.

Having read the first book, I was keen to get my hands on book 2 and it did not disappoint. Our intrepid time travellers this time find themselves journeying to Ancient Egypt and the discovery of Tutankhamun's tomb. I loved the combination of familiar characters and the factual information from the uncovering of the tomb. I devoured this in one sitting as I had to know what happened next.
I'm already looking forward to the next book in the series as the title was revealed at the end of the book.

The second entry in the Butterfly Club series, THE MUMMY'S CURSE sees the time travelling trio head forward in time to the excavation of Tutankhamun's tomb in an attempt to find its location so it can be excavated in their time period in order for the time travelling club to benefit financially.

The book uses this to explore the exploitation of archaeology by Western European countries and the colonial laws used to enforce it. By setting out on the quest for money and then reinforcing it with the attitudes of the parties at the dig, the book is a really nice way of starting that discussion with children.

I feel like lots of kids go through an Egyptology phase at some point (I definitely did!) so it was just fun to return to that, but see it based around the archaeology side, the wonder of discovery mixed with puzzles and heisting that are movie staples. It's a really great blend and makes for an exciting read. Plus the way real events have been incorporated into the curse was very neat.

There are also more hints about some sort of reckoning/attack on the club to come, as the cryptic message from the previous book is explained a bit. Given how close the Victorian parts of the two books have been, and how close the mysterious date is, it looks like it might come to a head in a book soon. The next entry involves the Mona Lisa and is out in the spring!

The concept of this book was intriguing: the time-traveling component with the Egyptian curse, mixed with the action-packed plot, historical references and exotic setting. Overall, I really enjoyed this read. It is the second book in the series, but you can easily read it as a standalone. There are several nods to book 1 about the Titanic that will make you want to read it too. Despite a few lagging parts, it's a satisfying novel for both young readers and adults.

A highly entertaining and gripping novel, one of those I enjoy now and would have loved when I was a child.
It's fast paced, action packed, the characters are interesting and there a lot about Ancient Egypt.
A well written and compelling story.
Many thanks to the publisher for this ARC, all opinions are mine

Thank you so much for the opportunity to read this book. Unfortunately, while I enjoyed the first book in the series, I haven’t been able to get into this one. DNF @ 44%

The Mummy's Curse is a book I'd have loved to have read as a kid. It's full of all those sorts of puzzles, mysteries that I used to love. Its characters were really good, a nice mix of different types of children. Throw in some beloved elder statesmen of the nineteenth century, HG Wells and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, a time train and you've hooked me. Travelling forward in time to the 1920's they have to try to find the tomb of Tutankhamen.

Luna, Konstantin and Aidan, the three self styled time thieves are sent by the Butterfly Club, to Eqypt to try to find the tomb so the relics can be brought back to England to financially benefit the Club. Accompanied by Conan Doyle, they board their time train and arrive in the Valley of Kings a couple of days before the discovery. Their plan is to find where the Pharoah is buried and then return to the past and dig up the treasure before him. When they arrive though, things change and Luna and her colleagues see that the treasures must remain in Egypt.

I did enjoy this story. It's uncomplicated to read and had some really nice touches thrown in. Everyone up in arms at Conan Doyle killing off Sherlock Holmes made me chuckle. Like I say, it's a book I would have loved to have when I was that age. It tells the finding of the tomb without the 'boring bits' that the teacher might add. Addressing some moral issues of Britain looting foreign climes, I think it would fit into being a class read.

An old school read, with a modern touch.

I enjoyed this book. I've not read the first one, set on the Titanic, but that didn't make too much of an impact on my enjoyment of this one. On of the things I found interesting in this book is the historically accurate sounding ideas around the British Empire and how it influenced people's opinions on what the British were entitled to do. I recently read another book on Netgalley which focused on Tutankhamun's tomb and that is where I found out about the role of Hussein Abdel-Rassoul in the discovery of the tomb so I loved that this book makes him into such a pivotal character. I know the children in my school would really enjoy the mystery and excitement of this story and I will definitely be looking to add it to our Ancient Egypt book collection.

The children said that they thought this book was even better than the first, and they loved that. Just the right amount of adventure and excitement.

I loved the first book in this historical series and knowing there were more to come made this an excruciating wait but book 2 is here and is as brilliant as the first, perhaps even surpassing it!

Aidan, Konstantin and Luna are back and ready for their next mission into the future. Having travelled on the ill-fated Titanic and completed their mission successfully, the trio are ready for the next one and hopeful of their success.

They accompany Sir Arthur Conan Doyle to an event hosted by an Egyptologist and see a mummy uncovered. This professor is keen to discover the tomb of Tutankhamen before Carter, and Doyle as well as Aunt Grace, believe the Butterfly Club can play their part.

Reaching into the future, they learn of the discovery and it’s financial backers and must travel to bring the young pharaoh home before Carter. However, with any great story, there are many things to learn and consider. Their mission changes over the course of the months in Egypt’s desert and they are faced with new challenges.

The First World War has ended and Konstantin faces some new hostility towards his Prussian background. Women now have the vote but some still feel stifled, and there are rumours the swastika no longer stands for peace. Every time this trio ventures into the future, they learn new things and face uncertainty.

The characters are so relatable and believable, leaping off the page to tell their tale. I find myself so engrossed in reading that I feel I am living their same adventure.

Having read this book and turning the last page to discover the title of a third has brought a real smile to my face. What a series!

Over the summer holiday, I have made a real effort to try to read some of the books in my ever-increasing TBR pile as well as the more up-to-date ones that I have acquired. Casting my eye along the shelf a few days ago, the first in this series – The Ship of Doom – caught my eye and I thought I would finally pick it up to read. That title is set upon the doomed RMS Titanic – a name familiar to us all but something in which I’ve never really been that interested if I’m honest.

That story however held me spellbound, with its masterful use of characterisation, well-researched historical detail and an incredible narrative and I so enjoyed it that I did something I only very occasionally do, deciding that I needed to read the next instalment straight way. Very fortunately for me, this was available through the magic of Net Galley and even more fortunately I was able to download it immediately meaning that as soon as I put Book 1 down, I picked up this new title, which – if anything – is even more thrilling than that first story.

After a brief introduction to the business of the Butterfly Club by member Luna, we meet her more properly as she sits gazing out of the window at her aunt’s London home, waiting to attend the latest meeting of the club. When her aunt appears, Luna is surprised to discover that they are to travel separately, with Luna being chaperoned on a little expedition by an unspecified adult – someone she is relieved to discover is fellow club member Arthur Conan Doyle. Travelling to the British Museum with him, Luna is reunited there with friends Konstantin and Aidan and together the four of them go to watch Professor of Egyptology Flinders Petrie unwrapping a mummy.

Following this, Petrie takes them to his office where he tells them of the hidden tomb of pharaoh Tutankhamun and the priceless treasures contained there. Conan Doyle invites Petrie to accompany them to the Butterfly Club where the conversation continues and it is decided by those present to use time travel to visit the future to guarantee that the tomb’s secrets will be discovered by those who would bring the priceless artefacts back to London.

Arriving at the Valley of the Kings, Conan Doyle and the children soon make the acquaintance of Egyptologist Howard Carter and his employer Lord Carnarvon and determine to find out the men’s plans to locate the tomb in order to access it ahead of them. But as Luna and the others try to complete their mission successfully, it soon becomes apparent that Carter and Carnarvon are not the only ones interested in the whereabouts of the legendary pharaoh’s treasure. Not only this but once the tomb is found, it is clear that Tutankhamun’s warning to unwelcome visitors to stay away is one that it would have been better to take heed of…

As in Book 1, Luna, Konstantin and Aidan show that although they are so very different from one another, together they form an incredible team in which their skills are perfectly balanced. By going forward in time to complete their task, they have very limited knowledge of the world in which they find themselves, which makes it all the more interesting to the reader who has the advantage of knowing far more about what will happen. Any knowledge that the reader has will not act as a spoiler though – even if you are an expert in Egyptology and the discovery of Tutankhamun’s tomb, there is so much to the narrative that has been imagined – and brilliantly imagined at that – that the whole way through the story, it is impossible to know exactly what will happen next.

While the time travelling aspect of the story makes this a great piece of science fiction, this is a title that will appeal to readers of other genres too – especially historical and mystery stories – and the amount of research that must have gone into this to make it so credible and historically accurate is amazing. As in the first book, there are hints of something yet to happen and with Book 3 – The Mona Lisa Mystery – expected in April 2023, I for one cannot wait to see exactly what that will be.

Although aimed at children 10 years and up, a great many adults will enjoy this too and fans of Sherlock Holmes will enjoy all of the references to Arthur Conan Doyle’s famous detective that have been scattered throughout. If you have not read Book 1, then you can dive straight into this one but I really would recommend you read these in order because firstly, they are so very well crafted and secondly, you will have a better understanding of the three children’s backgrounds. The Mummy’s Curse is published on October 13th and my enormous thanks go to Welbeck Publishing and Net Galley for my virtual advance read. Definitely one to pre-order.

This was a great, fast-paced read that I would recommend to anyone who has a passion for Egyptology, Egyptian culture and the mystery surrounding Tutankhamun’s mummy.