I REALLY enjoyed this book, though I was constantly referring back to the cast of characters to keep all of the Roman and Greek names straight. I learned a lot about both Cleopatra's children and ancient Rome. It's one of those books that I'll keep going back and rereading (and I've already done so a few times).

superb

A bit slower than Moran's previous novels, but the ending is worth the read.

Where to start, first I love history, but some books can be a bit dry sometimes, this one is not. It's a fantastic piece that made me reading every word and turning the pages fast. When it come to real historical persons I tend to google, but I just could not do it here. I wanted to read it. It's also great in another aspect, many books like this tend to go through the whole life story, instead here we read about a couple of years when she is young. Back in the back there are some historic facts what happened to everyone later, oh do not read those beforehand like I happened to do, kind of spoiled me there since I didn't know the history from before.

This book takes place in the glory that is Rome, Marc Anthony and Cleopatra are dead and their surviving children are brought to Rome. But they are lucky and the twins are cared for Octavian's sister who was once married to Marc Anthony. They are young and they are scared, but time moves on and they seem to be just a part of the family, as long as they don't anger anyone.

Selene is a wonderful narrator, she has an idealistic soul and through her we see Rome. I often say when I read books like this that I would have wanted to live there. But I can honestly say now that I would not have wanted to be a woman in ancient Rome. One of the richest women in Rome gives birth but the husband wants a son and throws the baby girl to the wolves. A beautiful free woman is put on trial after a rich merchant who lust after her claims she was a slave girl who got kidnapped from him as a baby. Noble women get handed over from husband after husband when their father's decided they can make a better match. No one asks the women, they are not free. So no, Rome has no glory for me, and I admire Selene who sees the injustice and knows she might end up just the same.

She has hopes, she falls in love, she is idealistic and she is aware of her status and the danger she and her brother is to Rome. But she still lives, go to school and sketches. She is a wonderful artist with aims to be an architect and one of the great ones take her as his apprentice. She shows Octavian (later emperor Augustus) that she is worth something.

This was a pager turner, I wanted to know what would happen to the twins. Michelle Moran keeps history alive and it feels like you are there living it, a fresh voice that makes it feel like fiction even though these are real people that have lived. But she does not just talk facts, she makes history come alive. She even had me near tears at one point.

I highly recommend this book, it was beautifully written and even thought I have never really cared for Cleopatra, now from reading about her daughter I am suddenly fascinated. I am really curious if Moran has managed to bring her other characters alive the same way in her 2 previous book. If so then she is a true author of historical books and I want to read more.

It's a story about normal life in Rome, about loss, about love, friendship, and a side story about red Eagle, who wants better life for slaves and to set them free. An interesting story and Selene wonders who he can be. I liked that twist to the story because it's important to show real life and not just hide behind palace walls.

TW: suicide, rape, murder, infanticide

I wasn’t expecting much from this book to be completely honest. I have a tendency to fact check basically everything when reading historical fiction. I guess this comes with being a history major. The bad thing about constantly fact checking is when I find out something is extremely inaccurate, I start to dislike what I’m reading. That didn’t happen with Cleopatra’s Daughter and I’m so happy!

This novel was fantastic! I haven’t read any fiction novels about this time period, so I was learning so much while enjoying the story. It also helps that I was learning about Julius Caesar and this period of Roman history in one of my classes. There was also a tad bit of Latin (that was actually correct), which I loved since I’m learning Latin at the moment.

The setting of this novel was amazing. I love to learn about ancient Rome, so being given descriptions like the ones in this book was great. I was able to clearly visualize the Palatine, the different forums, etc. Really, the descriptions of just about anything in this book were great. The writing was quick, but didn’t glance over any topics.

Most of the characters were complex and felt like real people. I think my favorites were Juba and Octavia. They were both realistic and quite likable. The only problem I had throughout the novel was how mature some of the characters acted. Selene and Alexander aged from ten to fifteen throughout, but didn’t act like children most of the time. They were most likely portrayed this way because they were from an ancient ruling family, so they had to be more mature than kids nowadays, but it was still a bit shocking when I remembered that they were around ten years old.

Overall, I really enjoyed this novel. It helped me put the history and culture that I was learning in class into context and helped me picture it easily. It was also very entertaining. I could barely put it down, which is a problem since I had midterms to study for. If you want a easy to read novel about ancient Rome that is surprisingly accurate, I highly recommend this one.

While I really enjoyed this book when I listened in long stretches, I have such a hard time with audio books in general with my mind wandering over and over that I pretty much listened to every chapter twice just to know my place; so I don't feel like I can review this other than to say I would eagerly read another of Moran's books, but next time on kindle or dtf.

I wasn't too certain about this book when I first picked it up but I ended up absolutely loving it. Great writing and plot.