Cleopatra starts to rule a bankrupt, deeply indebted Egypt, when she’s 15. This is historical fact. The fiction starts with Cleopatra as she tries one scheme after another to dig Egypt out of its financial hole. She romantically bonds two scribes to priestesses to make sure they return to Alexandria after a mission 1000’s of miles away. She gets women in the tax collector’s house to work against him, and deals with foreign soldiers by rewarding Egyptian women to bend Roman loyalties. Anticipating an upcoming civil war, Cleopatra plays both sides of a political game between Pompey and Caesar (leveraging the women in their lives), and covertly attempts to extend her influence behind the scenes in Rome. Between all that, she spends a little too much time obsessing over notes she took from an interview with one of the scribes…stumbling into her own coming-of-age. Humorous historical fiction with embezzling Romans, rude politicians, an ex-witchdoctor, priestesses, working girls, and a small dog…what’s not to like Free on Kindle.
