Book: Cleopatra’s Daughter
Author: Michelle Moran
Format: Paperback
Rating: 4/5
Review: This book is from the perspective of Kleopatra Selene, one of the three children of Queen Kleopatra/Cleopatra and Marc Antony. The beginning revolves around the defeat of Egypt by Octavian, and her and her twin brother Alexander and their little brother are taken to Rome. There’s a strong theme of family and it does contain the historically accurate suicides of her parents and although she tries not to mention them much because of the pain it causes her, her parents are clearly never forgotten. This book is easy to understand, even if you have little knowledge of that period like me, although this means I am not completely sure of the historical accuracy, although, at the end of the book, Michelle Moran has included a historical note which contains some information on how she developed the personalities of the characters, and how she mixed fact with fiction. The novel contains some mature themes of death and ‘romance’ so that is something to look out for, but as well we see these children develop into adults and even when they are young (12) they are still very mature for their age, which is a demonstration of their education. There are themes of jealousy in some places but also a huge mention of love in both a family and romantic sense and the story contains so much hope you really feel for these characters. Selene (as she is known in the book) has this huge love of architecture and this means that because it’s all from her perspective, you get beautiful descriptions of the buildings in Egypt and Rome. There is tension and emotion and it’s so beautiful and I really did enjoy this book and it ended in a perfect place. Michelle Moran also includes a small section on what happened after the book with the characters which I would assume is historically accurate from what we can gather from that time. Overall, if you are a lover of Egypt, Rome or general history, I really recommend this book, although something about it just wasn’t 5 stars for me but I can’t think what.
-Laura
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