Thank you to NetGalley and Bethany House Publishers for the ARC of this book. All opinions are my own. 

The premise of The Metropolitan Affair sounded fascinating to me. I love learning about ancient Egypt, and I enjoy going to museums. The 1920s is a time period that I’m not super familiar with, so I was also excited to learn more about it. 

What I liked best about this book was that I could tell that the author did a lot of research about ancient Egypt and their art. She was very specific about techniques used and the history behind a lot of their artifacts. 

I also enjoyed the Christian faith elements that were included in this story. 

While there were many redeeming qualities for this book, I also felt that it fell a bit flat in certain areas. 

First, the pacing was very slow and didn’t pick up until almost the end of the story. While I know some readers enjoy slow-paced books, I felt that I really had to push myself to continue reading this story. 

I also felt that there was not very much romance or chemistry between Lauren and Joe. There weren’t many moments where they had interactions outside of the investigation into forgeries. It didn’t really feel like they had a connection with each other even though they were so close throughout their adolescent years. 

The relationship between Lauren and her father was also a bit frustrating. I did not expect what ultimately occurred within their relationship, but I found this aspect of the story to be a bit boring. 

Overall, it wasn’t a terrible book, but I found it to be pretty much average. If you don’t mind slower paced stories, then you might enjoy this book a lot more than I did.