The fascination Cleopatra holds seems eternal and I was excited to read this new book.

As ever, no book can fully deal with a subject to everyone 's satisfaction, particularly such an important period of history. I found the book informative and interesting, but heavy-going in places.

Ultimately, and perhaps unfairly, I was left feeling a bit unsatisfied, as the book promised to answer questions that still feel barely touched upon.

Thanks to the author, publisher and NetGalley for the eARC of this book.

This was an extraordinary read. It brilliantly weaved the storyline of Cleopatra, the Egyptian queen, who was dubbed as the "Egyptian's shame" because of her renowned skill as a "seductress," when in fact women are capable of more than just being the embodiment of the "lustful temptations of men." This book submerged me on thr account that women are to be blamed for for the downfall of their greatest men warriors.

Reading this was a refreshing read. It gave me insight on Cleopatra and how much of a strategist she is. This, for me, stood out as debunking the biased narratives on her behalf, having painted her as nothing more than a whore who seduced Julius Caesar and Mark Antony as submissive.

Massive massive to Yale University Press and Netgalley for granting me this eARC!

A feminist retelling of the myths surrounding Cleopatra. I enjoyed this novel as it shone a new light on a story that I felt fairly familiar with but this brought a new perspective.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for a copy of the novel in exchange for an honest review

Book Synopsis:
The siren passionately in love with Mark Antony, the seductress who allegedly rolled out of a carpet she had herself smuggled in to see Caesar, Cleopatra is a figure shrouded in myth. Beyond the legends immortalized by Plutarch, Shakespeare, George Bernard Shaw, and others, there are no journals or letters written by Cleopatra herself. All we have to tell her story are words written by others. What has it meant for our understanding of Cleopatra to have had her story told by writers who had a political agenda, authors who distrusted her motives, and historians who believed she was a liar?

Francine Prose delves into ancient Greek and Roman literary sources, as well as modern representations of Cleopatra in art, theater, and film, to challenge past narratives driven by orientalism and misogyny and offer a new interpretation of Cleopatra’s history through the lens of our current era.

I love a good reinterpretation! This one was very interesting as I have never been very exposed to the literary sources cited. It was at times a bit of a slog (but is to be expected with some historical novels). I love the amount of imagination that goes into building out a story when we don't have one about the main character herself. Definitely worth picking up if you find Cleopatra's history interesting.

Cleopatra is one of the most enticing, fascinating historical figures. She's a powerful leader and a mystical seductress, and... that's generally the limit of what people think of when it comes to her, plus or minus a few snakes or pearls for drinking.

This book gives a fairly standard history, starting with the backstory of Alexander the Great and the historical events that led to Cleopatra's reign in Egypt. Prose uses historical records from Greeks, Romans, and others to tell the story and provide some commentary on what those events would have meant at the time. It also provides some feminist and modern interpretations of the events.

The most disappointing part is that the book poses a fascinating question: how have we come to our current ideas about Cleopatra, through both historical documents and modern portrayals? Although there are some interesting discussions of films and art about Cleopatra, it felt like it barely scraped the surface of that question. There are some examples of our current interpretation, but very little discussion on why that happened, steps forward, how public perception has changed over time, or any of that. Seeing as that is what the book seemed to promise, it was disappointing to be left still asking that question. It felt more like a master's thesis or something similar that wasn't fully developed after the original draft.

Overall, I thought learning more about the history of Cleopatra was enjoyable, and the quotes from historical documents were fascinating. Unfortunately, the book left me wanting a lot more than it gave me. It did spark more interest in the topic, so I will be looking into more books to answer the questions this one left me with.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an advance review copy.

Some parts were banal, but that’s expected in an historical account. I learned a lot about the Ptolemaic dynasty. Cleopatra and the rest of her gigantic incestuous family ruled Egypt but are ethnically Macedonian Greek. Was told by Marquise that GRRM used this as the basis for brother-sister and uncle-niece marriages for House Targaryen.

It’s 2022. Can we please stop slut shaming Cleopatra? Incest, murder and war aside, she was the first in her family to actually speak the Egyptian tongue. The rest of her family were too proud to learn. Lovely to see a powerful woman hated just because she is a woman. I will not be here to discuss the terrible Elizabeth Taylor film.

I found this an interesting read although quite dry at times. It made some interesting points about the historical bias due to Cleopatra being female and the fact that history is written by men. I felt at times it could have gone deeper into some areas. The discussion around how she’s been portrayed on screen was also interesting,

I've read a lot of books about Egyptian culture but not a lot of Cleopatra. Thus, this was an interesting read for me and I learned a lot from her history; the struggles to small victories.

I’d like to make it clear that I write this review as an Editor in Academic Classics publishing, with a degree in Classics, my period of specialisation being the Late Roman Republic to Early Imperial Rome (ie. the period of Cleopatra’s reign).

The start of this book was promising. There is a clear discussion of Cleopatra’s family background, situated within the context of the Egyptian and Roman world at the time. Cleopatra is originally given the foreground, and Prose clearly acknowledges the biases and quirks of the ancient sources, and deconstructs them to re-interpret Cleopatra’s genuine role as an intelligent military leader, Queen and mother.

However. Unfortunately, the book involves factual inaccuracies that are significant and also misleading. Prose has twisted certain characters and/or their involvement with Cleopatra to fit her narrative ( the “feminist” retelling) in ways that would mislead readers (in a similar way, I’d like to add, to the heavily biased volume on Cleopatra by Stacey Schaffer - which makes me wonder if Prose leant a little too heavily on her work, without consulting all the facts head on).

This comes up in a couple of places. Prose notes that Cicero was one of Cleopatra’s “most bitter and influential enemies”.

This is not true.

Cicero (who, unfortunately for Prose, is my specialist area) was not an enemy of Cleopatra. He mentioned in two (brief) letters to his best friend (letters that were meant to stay private) that he didn’t like her. He did nothing to proclaim being an enemy of Cleopatra, and she would not have found any reason to consider him an ‘enemy’, either. It is factually inaccurate (and also, totally irrelevant to the book - who cares about Cicero?? Isn’t this meant to be a feminist interpretation of Cleopatra? Why bring another man in??) and misleading to readers who aren’t specialists in the area.

Furthermore, Prose writes “Cicero…who was nearing sixty and had recently divorced his wife to marry his young ward.”

One. This is not true.
Cicero divorced his wife of thirty years because their marriage broke down, because she was stealing (her own) money back from him, and because fundamentally, the trust had gone from their relationship. He respected his wife and - crucially - ALL educated women (as much as a Roman man could in the period). He relied on her for all economic and really practical advice and activities. She managed his finances. A YEAR after he divorced her, when he ran out of money, it was recommended to him that he married into money (which was the only option), and it was recommended he marry into a family he was already financially involved with - that of the 16 he old Publilia. The marriage lasted a week, and Cicero regretted it significantly ( it’s in all of his later letters to his best friend).

Two. Therefore, this is character defamation. Prose leads you on to think Cicero (whose character is totally irrelevant to a book on Cleopatra - why are we being told inaccurate information about his personal life, other than to twist us against him???) was a lecherous, near paedophilic old man, who dumped his lovely wife for a pretty young girl. Furthermore, Cicero comes across as a misogynist which, if we take out the overall inequalities for women in Ancient Rome, he was not. He regularly enjoyed the company and intelligence of educated women, he appreciated the wisdom and calm-headedness of his wife, he encouraged his daughter’s education and wished there were more opportunities for her than were afforded women in Rome, and he regularly represented women in court. If anything, Cicero was as close to a feminist as you can get 50BC. None of what Prose has written about him throughout her book is true or accurate, and it’s horrifying that Yale University Press have allowed this to be published. If anything, it leads me to worry what else is factually inaccurate in this book.


Apologies for this long and negative review, but it needed to be said. It’s such a shame, and I’m disappointed. To be honest, I’m not entirely sure why this book is needed - we have hundreds of books on Cleopatra, including many modern “feminist” interpretations (her role as wise, intelligent, strong, bold, charismatic military leader and Queen as opposed to the old-school seductive witch is well-established in scholarship, and has been for many years) and I’m not sure what new information this volume offers. The major intrigue of Cleopatra is that we know essentially very little about her, and maybe it’s time we accepted that.

Thank you very much to NetGalley and Yale University Press for this ARC.

Thanks to netgalley for the free copy in exchange for my honest review.

This was informative and an interesting look at how Cleopatra has been portrayed through history- but unfortunately it read like an essay/thesis and was a bit clunky and dry for me

Thank you NetGalley for the advanced reader’s copy e-book. This book is set to publish on November 8th this year.

3.5 stars rounded down. This nonfiction book was more of a dissertation type piece on the thesis that much of what was written about Cleopatra and the films that portrayed her, were more myth than truth due to the male misogynistic voices that wrote the words and the scripts and directed the movies. She brings up a wealth of background, historical context, and facts to distinguish between myth and reality.

The reality is that if Cleopatra were a woman she would be praised for her military strategic intellect and power, not seen only for her lovers. History was written by men who objectified Cleopatra and villainified her because she was a woman.

“It is hard to think of a king or emperor whose prodigious achievements and accomplishments were so widely ignored even as he was ferociously reviled for having conducted two sequential and serious love affairs.”

This book was not organized the most logically, although I did learn a great deal of history and feminist interpretation. I appreciated the last half of the book more than the first half, because the first half read more like my AP world history textbook. It is a helpful read to become more exposed to that time period, culture, and powerful people. Overall, I think the author did justice to Cleopatra in hoping to portray her less through the lens of a seductive woman and more in line with her political achievements and ruling abilities. I appreciated that historical critique.

This is not a book for you if you have zero interest in history or feminism.

I enjoy a good book on history and Cleopatra by Francine Prose did not disappoint. 

Enjoyed learning about the Ptolemies and the struggle to keep their dynasty out of harm's way.  I was aware of the historical romantic escapades of Cleopatra but this feminist interpretation made me aware of her 20 years of successful ruling of Egypt as well.  I learned that she was more than just a femme fatale, she was also very intelligent and astute in Egyptian and Roman politics.  

My thanks to #NetGalley and Yale University Press for this ARC.  This opinion is my own.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for this ARC!
This book was pretty interesting all told, a good primer on Cleopatra the historical figure. It definitely provides information grounded in historical documents to supplement the audiences understanding of a figure shrouded in myth and more often defined by representations in literature/pop culture, which often misses the nuance.
Like many nonfiction reads though, I did find the authors style a bit dry and hard to get excited about. It also felt more like a primer than a work which truly dug deep into challenging the mythos of the person.

A really interesting and informative book. There is a lot of really well researched information about the great Cleopatra’s life. I did at times find it a bit difficult to follow but still very engaging.

I truly wanted to like this book, but for myself, the writing felt extremely dry. I understand of course, that with historical novels, that is sometimes a given, but I truly could not get into this book. I might have gone in with the wrong expectations and that could have skewed my reading experience. Aesthetically, the cover is beautiful and I really wanted to like it.

As a person, who mostly knew the very surface of Cleopatra story, and not so much about her actual political and socio-economical impact, I was glad to found this book. It put the heavily judged historical figure through a new lens, one of a woman separate from her lovers, a leader trying to keep her country afloat. This feminist lens was something much needed in the bigraphical non-fiction and sets the book up for a fresh angle on one of the most famous women in the world.

I have also enjoyed the language and the structure of the novel, as well as its lenght. It touched upon and analysed the most vital facts from the Cleopatra's life, while bringing in her portrayal in literature, art, and film, commenting the misconseptions and pointing out the flaws in other narratives.

The only critique I have regarding the novel is that my absolutely favourite portrayal of Cleopatra, by Monica Belluci, didn't make it under the analysis, but that can be forgiven taking into the account the author is an American and the film was a work of fiction.

An intriguing, even-handed biography, easily accessible at every point. I craved more color in the narrative, but Francine Prose has clearly done immaculate research into a fascinating woman.

Thanks to Yale University Press and Netgalley for the opportunity of an early read.

Ancient Egypt always become my favourite history to read. And for Cleopatra's story isn't lack of adaptation. I am so lucky got my hand to several amazing books.

I found that the writing style is very literature, almost look like textbook. It is straightfoward and informative but not give any additional to another piles information about Cleopatra.
This book is easy to read, short and could be done in one sitting. It will become perfect gift for students or readers who really into ancient Egypt.

Thank you Netgalley and Yale University Press for provided me with this copy. I am grateful but my thoughts are my own.

A straightforward and concise history of Cleopatra. A good read for anyone who isn't familiar with Cleopatra looking to learn more about her. I would have enjoyed a little more character to the writing as opposed to strictly facts, but it was interesting nonetheless.

This short book (about 200 pages) unfortunately reads more as a thesis or academic paper than a non-fiction book. It's a tad dry for my taste. While historical bits are given in the book about Cleopatra, I found the writing a bit too factual, without giving new insight into who Cleopatra was overall. Information about the times, people, and places could've been more effectively woven through the story.