"Selene grew up in a palace on the Nile under parents Cleopatra and Mark Antony - the most brilliant, powerful rulers on earth. But Roman Emperor takes the country and princess to Rome. She finds herself torn between two young men and two possible destinies - until she reaches out to claim her own."
RATING 5 STARS
Once upon a time there was Cleopatra the seventh, Queen of Egypt. She allied herself with her lover, Julius Caesar. We all know how THAT story ended.
Then there was the lovely Marcus Antonius. We know how that story ends too. They all died.
But these Great Ruler’s children are often forgotten, in fact, I didn’t even know Cleopatra had so many children. We are often so enticed by the “magic” and so-called “romance” of Ancient Egypt and Rome that everything else hides in the shadowed background of history. Everyone has heard of the tragic love triangles that took place in Cleopatra the seventh’s lifetime, but history fails to mention anything that went on after they all died.
Cleopatra the seventh was lover to Julius Caesar. She had his son {her first born}, Caesarian, before Caesar was assassinated {which wasn’t long after}. She then went on to marry Marcus Antonius {who was first married to Octavia, Caesar’s adopted son and nephew Octavianus’s sister}. She had three children with Antonius; twins Cleopatra the eighth Selene and Alexandros Helios, and her youngest, Ptolly.
Octavianus succeeded his uncle and adopted father Julius Caesar as conqueror of Rome – and eventually Egypt and Spain and all other surrounding territories – alongside his {current at the time} wife, Livia. When Marcus Antonius officially divorced Octavianus’s sister Octavia, Octavianus used the divorce as a smear campaign against Cleopatra the seventh and as an excuse to claim official war against Egypt as a means to conquer the city.
**I would recommend paying serious attention to the character list before reading this book.
As a last resort to save their family Cleopatra and Antonius sent her first son, Caesarian {cousin and step brother to Octavianus} to India. He was hunted down and executed by Octavianus’s men. Eventually, after the death of both her husband and her son, the great Cleopatra the seventh killed herself.
And that is usually where the story ends.
But Cleopatra left her youngest children to fend for themselves in the midst of the war between Rome and Egypt. The children {the twins were eleven at the time} were left to pick up the pieces left by their parents. Which is the story the book is centered around.
Told in Cleopatra the seventh Selene’s voice and view, the story is a masterful telling of the lives of these three children in the aftermath of Rome’s takeover of Egypt and their strong will to live. This book is enchanting. Between Roman Politics, the leaders, the Ancient Egyptian rituals and religion, the war, the love triangles, etc., this book is impossible to put down. History, especially ancient Egyptian history, has been extremely romanticized and misconstrued throughout the years. There is a little bit of romance, and of course, and all of what has been mentioned above is included in the story, but Vicky Alvear Shecter also leaves nothing out. From blood death rituals, to brutal assassinations, and several murder attempts using poison, strangulation, stabbing, suicide – it is all there, and it is all historically accurate. Parts of this book are brutal, but there is never a dull moment in reading and I was extremely pleased that the book had a {somewhat} happy ending.
The story starts when Cleopatra Selene is seven years old and travels through the course of years until she is about sixteen. For about three quarters of the book she is eleven and twelve years old, and at times it was hard for me to remember how young she was given everything that had happened to the poor girl.
An intense but enchanting read, Cleopatra’s Moon is a must read for historical fiction lovers.