Daytime Book Club - I Am Cleopatra

* *Note: $5 registration fee can be used as a credit toward a purchase in-store. The credit expires the night of book club.**

Sidetrack Bookshop is a mission-driven bookstore, which means (in part) that we are committed to providing a welcoming and inclusive space for people of all identities. In order to maintain our welcoming and inclusive space in the context of what we hope will be a lively and productive book club discussion, we have developed the following house rules.

By attending a book club meeting, you agree to the following:

1. Share the floor: Be sure to let everyone talk and express their thoughts on the book. If you feel like you're talking a lot, you probably are! Invite others to speak.
2. Be respectful: We'll no doubt have differing opinions. Seek to understand first, then to be understood. Check your privilege, and take special care with others who have lived experience differing from your own.
3. Comments or behavior that demean a specific person, identity, or culture will not be tolerated.

Book club hosts will keep these house rules in mind and will redirect you or the conversation as a whole if we feel they aren't being honored. We also reserve the right to ask an attendee to leave if we feel they're contributing to an unwelcome space.

"Simply gorgeous! The prose flows as smoothly as the waters of the Nile, rich in sensory detail . . . . Solomons pulls back the layers of history to show us the true Cleopatra in all of her pride and glory."—Luna McNamara, author of Psyche & Eros

"Wonderful . . . . A fresh and lively take on a well-known tale."—The Times

From the internationally bestselling author of Fair Rosaline comes a captivating historical novel—a powerful retelling of the life of one of the most beguiling and misrepresented female figures in history, Cleopatra.

The favored daughter of the Pharaoh, Egyptian Princess Cleopatra spent her childhood hiding amid the scrolls in the great library of Alexandria, dreaming of one day writing her own story.

When her father dies, naming both Cleopatra and her selfish brother Ptolemy as his successors to the throne, danger arises. While the young Queen sails the Nile to greet her people, her brother plots to eliminate her and rule the empire alone.

But while Ptolemy has the power of the kingdom behind him, Cleopatra has her cunning wits. When the great Caesar arrives from Rome, she realizes he could be the key to her salvation—though courting this powerful man could cost her everything.

Can Cleopatra save her life, her throne, and her beloved Egypt and finally write her own history?

Told from the dueling perspectives of Cleopatra and Caesar’s mistress Servilia, I Am Cleopatra is a powerful, addictively readable reimagining of the alluring queen’s life. A modern retelling that goes beyond previous caricatures, I Am Cleopatra is a fascinating portrait of the flesh-and blood-woman behind the great legend. Natasha Solomons’ spellbinding story of female power and fragility, love and loss, fierce friendship and terrible betrayal introduces at last the real Cleopatra in all her glory and vulnerability.

Natasha Solomons is the author of nine internationally bestselling novels, including Mr. Rosenblum Dreams in English, The House at Tyneford, which was a New York Times bestseller and chosen for the Richard & Judy Book Club, and Fair Rosaline. Natasha lives in Dorset with her children. She also works as a playwright and screenwriter. Her novels have been translated into seventeen languages. When not writing in the studio, Natasha can usually be found in her garden or kitchen dancing.

Know what’s Happening Next — before everyone else does.

Get App

Host or Publisher Sidetrack Bookshop