I only knew Cleopatra Selene existed because of one fictional book I read years ago by Michelle Moran, which shares this book's title. The daughter of Queen Cleopatra and Mark Antony, because of a distinct lack of source material so often she, her twin brother Alexander Helios and their younger brother Ptolemy are erased or ignored from the narrative, so it was great to come across this book on KU which sorts through the fragments we know to try and provide a biography of the woman who went from Egyptian princess to Roman prisoner, before becoming a queen in her own right.

The majority of the book talks around the subject of Cleopatra Selene's life by describing the wider world, family ties and so on rather than focusing directly on the subject. However, where this would usually really bug me, the author does such a good job of setting expectations at the outset that I felt like I was reading a cohesive narrative throughout. Little may be known about her directly, but I feel like I got to know her better through the world she lived in via this work. 

It's not a particularly heavy work either, which really helps. Yes, there are moments where perhaps it feels like we've strayed a bit too far from the story, and moments where I found it difficult to follow and my eyes glazed over a bit, but generally speaking it's clear, concise and an engaging read. 

It doesn't spend too long dwelling on the ifs, buts and maybes, which also helps the flow. There is some exploration of different possibilities for some major moments i.e. what happened to Alexander and Ptolemy and the date of her own passing, but again these are dealt with in a very straightforward style that doesn't tangle you up in different theories. The book certainly doesn't claim to be the definitive authority, but it is written  in such a way that you feel like you've gotten reliable, well thought out answers that still leave room for alternative arguments.

I think the biggest disappointment for me is that the substantive content ended 65% of the way through the book. The rest was footnotes, images and so on. Now, I appreciate that scholarly works requires these things, but for such a short book that does seem rather excessive. I think I'd have been more annoyed if I'd bought a copy because that's essentially a third of the book that most people will skim at best. But equally, again, this does illustrate just how tight the narrative is.

I get the feeling I'll be revisiting Michelle Moran's fictional version of this story again before roo long, as well as some of the other novels mentioned in here too!