Goodreads Monday: 27/10/2025

Goodreads Monday is now hosted by Budget Tales Book Club. All you have to do is show off a book from your TBR that you’re looking forward to reading.

Hello!

I really hope everyone has had a good start to the week. I have had a lovely day meeting up with my best friend and visiting a National Trust place.

My chosen book to feature this week is a non fiction book that I am quite excited to read.

Cleopatra’s Daughter by Jane Draycott

The first biography of Cleopatra Selene – daughter of Cleopatra VII – princess, prisoner and African queen.

In 1895, archaeologists excavating a villa outside Pompeii discovered a hoard of Roman silverware. In the centre of one dish was a female figure with thick, curly hair, deep-set eyes, a slightly hooked nose and a strong jaw, and sporting an elephant scalp headdress. Modern scholars believe this woman is Cleopatra Selene, daughter of the infamous Cleopatra and Mark Antony.

Using this discovery as her starting-point, Jane Draycott recreates the life and times of a remarkable woman. Unlike her siblings, who were either executed as threat to Rome’s new ruler, Augustus, or simply forgotten, Cleopatra Selene survived and prospered. She was a princess who became a prisoner; a prisoner who became a queen; an Egyptian who became Roman; and a woman who became a powerful ruler in her own right at a time when women were marginalised. Her life shines new light on the conflict between the politics, culture and history of Rome and Egypt, as well as the relationship between Rome and one of its most significant allied kingdoms, Mauretania.

Happy Reading