Evocative, immersive and engrossing. These characters lived and breathed their lives beyond the page and I could feel them in the room with me. The historical setting was excellent too and an integral part of the story. As a story of women each vibrant in her own way, it was also a case of damned if you did and damned if you didn't, but I loved seeing how they worked through their circumstances. The author conveyed a real sense of the knife-edge on which they lived. I truly loved it. Elizabeth Chadwick Magnificent... The vivacity, the verve, the sense of bone deep truth of the writing - all are superb. 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. 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. Manda Scott

Emily Holleman became fascinated with Cleopatra's younger sister Arsinoe on a 2011 trip to Egypt and has been researching and writing about the Ptolemies ever since. A graduate of Yale University, Holleman spent several years as an editor for Salon.com-a job she left to follow Arsinoe and her quest for the throne of Alexandria. She lives and works in Brooklyn and is, unsurprisingly, also a younger sister.