Publishers Weekly
Before she was a queen, Cleopatra was a girl, and Meyer's incarnation of the future monarch longs to be treated as normal—wandering the marketplace, learning to dance—even as she secretly hopes to someday rule Egypt. Meyer's short chapters can occasionally make the narrative feel choppy, but her lush, detail-rich prose ably evokes Cleopatra's life as a young princess, beginning at age 10 and continuing on until she turns 22. During this time, readers are treated to royal intrigue and the cutthroat politics of Cleopatra's two older sisters, Tryphaena and Berenike, who are desperate to prevent Cleopatra's rule, since she is the favorite daughter of their father, King Ptolemy XII. This is sibling rivalry at its most vicious: crossing her sisters could cost Cleopatra her life, let alone her throne. The arrival of Marcus Antonius midway through the novel (and later of Julius Caesar) provides only the briefest hint of romance—Meyer (The Bad Queen) roots her heroine squarely in the realm of politics. Narrating with the poise and confidence of a born leader, this Cleopatra should win readers over. Ages 12–up. (June)
From the Publisher
This best-selling classic of a parent's enduring love is available in a gift edition: slipcased with a laminated box and a clothbound book.
Kirkus Reviews
Having made her way through the European princesses of note (Duchessina, 2007, etc.), Meyer dishes up historical-fiction-lite in this imagined account of Cleopatra's coming of age.
Readers follow the mildly compelling first-person account in sections, from the 10-year-old touring the Nile with her father, through the teenage power struggles with her maniacal sisters, to the securing of her throne, which she pointedly ensures at the cost of her virginity: "As the night goes on, the magnetism between us grows as strong as the pull of the moon on the tides. By the next morning I am Caesar's mistress. I am not Caesar's conquest. He is mine." The occasionally vivid voice of an intelligent young woman lapses into uncharacteristic moments of denseness (as she fails to heed advice she's just given herself) or starchy historical or cultural explanations for the readers' benefit, often inserted into conversation ("But you are right—[Caesar] has a wife in Rome. Her name is Calpurnia. His first wife, Cornelia, bore him his only child, Julia, and both are dead. He divorced his second wife, Pompeia...").For such an exciting history, the narrative arc lags under the inconsistent voice.
Readers who hungry purely for lots of effective detail of an ancient culture, time and place may find this a digestible-enough vehicle for it, with oodles of backmatter for support. (Historical fiction. 11-14)
