Author: Lucy Coats
Publisher: Hachette
Rating: WARTY!
DISCLOSURE: Unlike the majority of reviews in this blog, I've neither bought this book nor borrowed it from the library. This is a "galley" copy ebook, supplied by Net Galley. I'm not receiving (nor will I expect to receive or accept) remuneration for this review. The chance to read a new book is often enough reward aplenty!
One huge kudos up front: this book uses paper from responsible sources! You go Hachette/Orchard! Maybe all publishers do this these days, and this one's the only one smart enough to trumpet it? I don't know, but credit where it's due!
The title for chapter one is very dramatic : Death comes to Alexandria - but then a brief description tells us we're in Alexandria, four years earlier - earlier than what? I don't know! There was no prologue, for which I am deeply grateful to the author! She puts it in chapter one, where it belongs, so this book got off to a good start for me, but then it rather went downhill I'm afraid.
Cleo's mother is dying. Cleo's father, one of the Ptolemys, has run away to Rome not long before, taking the entire family with him except for Cleo and her mom. Cleo has never felt so alone and was trying her best not to cry - not to show weakness - as she begged the god Isis to spare her mom. Isis, like every god, has a an un-amusing habit of simply not listening.
So yes, it's the story of Cleopatra, told for a middle grade audience. Cleo starts out at twelve years old, then jumps to sixteen, but the story-telling remained middle-grade, which was one of my problems with it. Cleopatra's name means 'father's glory', but this isn't her real glory or story - which was another of my problems with it. Cleopatra's real story is completely twisted around here, so please don't think you're learning any history. I don't understand why writers do this. If you're going to make up literally everything as was done here, then why use a real historical person? if you're going to write about a real person, why make it so fanciful that it bears no relation to her real life?
To be honest, the story is a complete mess. Cleo did have to flee from Alexandria, but it wasn't like Cinderella fleeing from her two evil stepsisters as is portrayed here. She had actually been ruling - at first along with her father, and then with her brothers, Ptolemy XIII and Ptolemy XIV, to each of which brothers she was married. When she fled, it was not after her mother's death, but after her father's (Ptolemy XII's) death. Her brother was the evil sibling, refusing to share power with his sister. Both Cleo and her younger sister Arsinoë (named after the mother of the first Ptolemy) - a sister Cleo later had assassinated - fled, and it was Arsinoë who went into a temple, not of Isis but of Artemis.
Arsinoë's story would have actually been more interesting. Tryphaena was not an evil stepsister but was actually Cleopatra's mother (as is thought - no one knows for sure), aka Cleopatra V. There was no Bere -nice or -nasty - not as a sister. There was a Cleopatra Berenice III, who was an aunt or possibly Cleo's mom (the Ptolemy family tree was as incestuous as you can get). In real life, Cleo was never the girl portrayed here!
At one point Cleo describes a scorpion as an insect. It’s not. It’s an arachnid, related to spiders. The ancient Egyptians wouldn’t necessarily make this distinction, but I think it’s misleading and unnecessary – and it makes her look dumb. The real Cleopatra made some bad decisions, but she was anything but dumb. At another point, Cleo refers to the Ptolemy side of her ancestry, which is amusing because there was really only a Ptolemy side to her ancestry! Her entire family was descended from two people and the bothers uncles, etc. intermarried repeatedly. As I mentioned, this was one of the most incestuous lineages ever!
So in a novel like this you have to decide how much you want it to represent history and/or how much you're willing to let it be fanciful. For a good story I could accept either route, so for me, it all comes down to how engrossing and intelligent the story ends up being, and there it failed for me because it was way too young for the intended audience, and apart from it not being accurate, it wasn't very engaging. Cleo wasn't likable. She was far too self-obsessed and self-absorbed. She cared nothing for anyone but herself and her slave-girl who was named Charm even though the actual slave who died with Cleo was named Charmion.
The supernatural elements might have made for an interesting story but were skimped on to the point where I wondered why they had even been included. To cut a (too) long story short, I gave up reading this one at about fifty percent in and I can't recommend it based on what I read.
