CLEOPATRA'S SHADOWS

Breathing new life into these historical personalities.... Holleman offers a fresh take on the Ptolemy dynasty and has delivered what promises to be just the first in an exciting series about Arsinoe, youngest sister of Cleopatra.

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.

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.

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.

Holleman artfully depicts real women of the ancient world, who used their own wits and wiles to maneuver among the most brilliant men of their age.... A triumphantly fresh tale for historians and casual fans alike.

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.

Hungary: Europa, Brazil: Leya, Italy: Newton Compton, UK: Little Brown; Lithuania: Sofoklis

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.

Historically detailed and multilayered.... With scintillating visual details of gorgeous palaces, rich temples, and the famous library of Alexandria, [Cleopatra's Shadows] evok[es] a world in which the ancient heroes Alexander and Odysseus-and Greek tragic characters such as Antigone-come to life.... Holleman's imaginative, textured portraits of the lives and ambitions of these little-known heroines will appeal to readers of historical and literary fiction alike.

“The rich, exotic world created by Emily Holleman in her debut novel, Cleopatra’s Shadows, is mesmerizing. Intrigue, betrayal and the near-destruction of a dynasty follow in the footsteps of Cleopatra’s little-known, but ambitious sisters, Arsinoe and Berenice. A perfect marriage of dedicated research and passionately inventive story telling.”

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.

Women have, throughout history, been secondary-often recorded (if at all) as complementary, or as muse to man's genius. But now, as modern societies are re-appraising the value of women, so too are books evolving to match. Readers are pulled into worlds previously closed off-full of tenacity, adventure, and scandal-page-turning, yes, but real. Cleopatra's Shadows reimagines Cleopatra's history through the perspective of her younger sister Arsinoe. We want these stories more than ever.

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 twenty one, 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.