My biggest problem with a lot of the retellings of women of antiquity is how stripped of agency they are. How detoothed. Their crimes are reframed as misunderstandings, as manipulations by the men around them, as evil spirits acting through them.

Not so with Cleopatra.

While she’s a historical and not mythological figure, her legend is larger than life, and El-Arifi handles that beautifully, often referring to the interpretations of Cleopatra that would follow. The woman she depicts is ambitious, passionate, fearsome, exhibitionist, vain, lying, scheming, loving and fiercely protective. We see every facet of her over the course of twenty years, the two great love affairs we remember, the birth of four children, the fall of her kingdom.

I also enjoyed her representation of Caesar and Marcus Antonius, also deeply flawed people, both with a mildly toxic but devoted relationship to Cleopatra. Again, I was glad for a change that they weren’t represented as older men taking advantage of a young queen — which of course would have been an acceptable interpretation, but again El-Arif never wavers in letting Cleopatra make her own decisions.

I listened to the audio read expertly by Adjoa Andoh and can highly recommend.

The only reason I’m not giving 5 stars is just that I was not totally convinced that we needed that last chapter. If it had ended at the Temple of Isis I would have been far happier. Some stories don’t get closure.