Cleopatra's Shadows — Emily Holleman

RIVETING HISTORICAL FICTION THAT REIMAGINES THE BEGINNINGS OF CLEOPATRA'S EPIC SAGA THROUGH THE EYES OF HER YOUNGER SISTER, ARSINOE

Arsinoe, the bright and incisive eight-year-old daughter of King Ptolemy, awakes one morning from an ominous dream of statues weeping blood to find that her reality is even worse:There's been a violent coup, and she is stranded alone in the palace, abandoned by both her beloved older sister Cleopatra and her indifferent father•he new monarch? Arsinoe's half • sister Berenice, who has seized the throne and now rules over a bloodthirsty royal court.

Arsinoe's struggle to establish herself in this strange new world takes her from the palace to the streets of war-torn Alexandria, where she must cast off her childhood comforts, including her idolization of Cleopatra. Meanwhile, Berenice confronts her own demons -- her cruel, dying mother, a pair of fickle husbands, and the ever-present threat of her father's return from exile -- as she fights to maintain power as the first queen to rule Egypt alone in a thousand years. When their deposed father, Ptolemy, marches on the city with a Roman army, both daughters must decide where their allegiances truly lie, and Arsinoe grapples with the difficult truth -- that the only way to survive her dynasty is to rule it.