Read Your Way to Rome

Loved Book of the Day: Cleopatra's Daughter
Author: Michelle Moran
Genre: Historical fiction
Content: Ancient Rome; some violence; some sex
Length: 411 pages

For the most part, I was laying out by the pool during a recent Florida vacation while reading Cleopatra's Daughter. By the middle of the first chapter I was mentally transported from my lounge chair to the hot, gritty streets of Alexandria, Egypt, two-thousand years ago. The rays beating down on me were the same that scorched Alexandria as the legendary Cleopatra, her three youngest children huddled behind her, stood in obstinate wait for Octavian's men as they marched through her beloved city determined to claim her throne.

If you're an ancient Rome aficionado, and you love the genre of historical fiction, you should probably just go buy this right now.

As the title suggests, this book is not about the ill-fated queen whose celebrated beauty and charm seem to be as persevering and timeless as Rome itself, but about her daughter, Selene. Selene is our narrator, and her perspective is as headily captivating as her character. The only daughter of Marc Antony and Cleopatra, she is a princess who shares her mother's strong will and outdoes her mother's exotic beauty. We have heard little about her before, and it's surprising and rather curious that the child of such human dynamos would be so widely forgotten. Moran unearths a gem in Selene and so unleashes a continued history of the greatest love story of all time.




Selene is a precocious ten-year-old when she, her twin brother Alexander and her little brother Ptolemy are captured by Octavian during the fall of Egypt to Roman invasion. After witnessing the suicides of both parents, the once-royal children are taken by Octavian back to Rome - after he loots their palace and proclaims himself emperor of Egypt - both as a token of his merciful nature and to display them as spoils of war through the streets of Rome during his much-anticipated Triumph parade.

The story's success hinges on the reality that no Roman emperor - and, indeed, no ruler in the ancient world - was ever merciful when it came to power. The reader is acutely aware from the beginning that the endearingly brave, unlucky Selene is helplessly stuck in the grips of a corrupt city of fickle politicians and jealous, power-hungry Roman wives. After all, Selene and her brothers are the last in the line of descendants of Alexander the Great. Their very names inspire jealousy, and their Egyptian beauty makes eyes grow wide with curiosity and intrigue.

Befriended by the emperor's famously beautiful daughter, Julia, and his favorite nephew, Marcellus, the twins go to school and join the imperial family on vacations and trips to races and gladiator fights. But even those closest to them warn them to make themselves useful to the emperor. Whether Selene and Alexander can prove their usefulness becomes the ultimate question of life and death.

Living in Octavian's sister's house, Selene and Alexander are constantly bombarded by the personal ambitions of Rome's most powerful, and their hearts yearn for a way to reclaim their rightful throne. A growing threat of slave rebellion builds intensity as the novel progresses, adding tangible layers of anxiety and uncertainty to Selene's fearful entrance into womanhood.

Moran gives life to Rome through a bustling array of characters who represent all points on the social spectrum. A former Gallic princess attends Selene as her slave and offers her quiet guidance; Octavian's kind, gentle sister Octavia tries her best to protect Selene from the terrors a pretty young girl can know in unkind Rome; and influential men and soldiers are always just around the corner.

Those familiar with the politicians, public figures and customs of ancient Rome will delight in how Cleopatra's Daughter is meticulously researched and realistically depicted. The presence of characters such as Catullus, Horace, Marcus Agrippa, Tiberius, Marcellus, Julia and other famous Romans make the novel as much about Selene's survival and triumph as it is about heated political rivalry, infamous family treachery, and the ever-present provocative triangle of love, sex and murder that makes it so intoxicating to escape to ancient Rome, time and time again.


Other books by Michelle Moran:
Nefertiti
The Heretic Queen


Buy Cleopatra's Daughter now at Amazon.com by clicking here.

Or, to learn more about Michelle Moran, click here to visit her official website.