Cleopatra's Shadows (Fall of Egypt Novel) - Softcover

"We forget that Cleopatra was a Macedonian, her royal house a relic of the career of Alexander the Great. Where Cleopatra went to bed with Rome, her half-sister Berenice, at nineteen, tried to hold the Egyptian throne against it, while her sister Arsinoe, still a child, fought to hang on in the margins. Prophetic dreams, fraying family bonds, and desperate development of strength in crisis define this affecting work of historical fiction."--Zachary Mason, author of The Lost Books of the Odyssey

"A colorful tale full of the sights and smells of ancient Egypt, with palace intrigues populated by eunuchs, learned tutors, and slaves of every stripe."--Enid Shomer, author of The Twelve Rooms of the Nile

"These characters lived and breathed their lives beyond the page and I could feel them in the room with me. Evocative, immersive and engrossing. I truly loved it."--Elizabeth Chadwick, author of The Summer Queen

"Readers will sympathize with Berenice as she battles formidable odds.... Holleman succeeds in teasing vivid throughlines from an incredibly complex period.... Her language, anachronism-free, artfully captures the matrix of myth and epic which nurtures and inspires her characters. A high-stakes family drama."--Kirkus Reviews

"An outstanding debut novel.... Some writers seem destined to unearth the truth of a time and a place and a set of people: Mary Renault and Alexander, Hilary Mantel and Thomas Cromwell and now Emily Holleman and the last generation of Ptolemies. The vivacity, the verve, the sense of bone deep truth of the writing-all are superb. There's a freshness to the prose that is truly captivating, and a dynamism to the narrative that gives life to the people whose names are otherwise a footnote in history."--Manda Scott, author of The Crystal Skull

"This historically detailed exploration of life on the Nile during the Ptolemy dynasty feels like a breath of fresh air after the 'Downton'-inspired wave of 20th-century historical fiction. Fans of Madeline Miller's Song of Achilles should take note."--BookPage

"Riveting."--Steph Opitz, Marie Claire

"The story of Cleopatra has been told many times over, in many different ways, though there's a certain consistency to the tale's key elements - the seductiveness, the asp, the sultry kohl eyeliner.... Holleman break[s] free of the clichés dogging the last great pharaoh of Ptolemaic Egypt, the better to see her fresh.... Arsinoe and Berenice might be confined to the shadows of history, but here they are squarely in the limelight, powerful protagonists of their own dramas. They could easily give the women of Game of Thrones a run for their money."--Alexandra Schwartz, Salon

"Holleman break[s] free of the clichés dogging the last great pharaoh of Ptolemaic Egypt, the better to see her fresh.... [Arsinoe and Berenice] could easily give the women of Game of Thrones a run for their money."--Alexandra Schwartz, Salon

"Holleman richly resuscitates this ancient world of danger, illuminating the lives of the women of one extraordinary lineage and their audacious, overt scrambles towards power."--Kara Cooney, author of The Woman Who Would Be King: Hatshepsut's Rise to Power in Ancient Egypt

The secret beginnings of Cleopatra's epic saga, seen through the eyes of her forgotten sisters.

Arsinoe, the bright and incisive eight-year-old daughter of King Ptolemy, awakes one morning from an ominous dream of statues weeping blood to find that her reality is even worse. There's been a violent coup, and she is stranded alone in the palace, abandoned by both her beloved older sister Cleopatra and her indifferent father. The new monarch? Arsinoe's half sister Berenice, who has seized the throne and now rules over a bloodthirsty royal court.

Arsinoe's struggle to establish herself in this strange new world takes her from the palace to the streets of war-torn Alexandria, where she must cast off her childhood comforts, including her idolization of Cleopatra. Meanwhile, Berenice confronts her own demons--her cruel, dying mother, a pair of fickle husbands, and the ever-present threat of her father's return from exile--as she fights to maintain power as the first queen to rule Egypt alone in a thousand years. When their deposed father, Ptolemy, marches on the city with a Roman army, both daughters must decide where their allegiances truly lie, and Arsinoe grapples with the difficult truth--that the only way to survive her dynasty is to rule it.

A bold and mesmerizing debut, CLEOPATRA'S SHADOWS is a thrilling depiction of a treacherous Egyptian dynasty and an ancient world made new.