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The Drowning King A Fall of Egypt Novel Emily Holleman Books

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The Drowning King A Fall of Egypt Novel Emily Holleman Books

Lovers of historical fiction - and those like me who generally don’t read historical fiction but were fans of Emily Holleman’s debut novel, Cleoptra’s Shadows -- will thoroughly enjoy this second allotment of Holleman's "Fall of Egypt" series.

The Drowning King begins about four years after the end of the first novel which culminated in the beheading of Cleopatra’s older sister (and King Ptolemy’s eldest daughter) Berenice Now it is Ptolemy himself who lays dying, and so this portion of the saga begins with an Egypt that is on the brink of a new era and a new reign: That of Cleopatra and her brother (also named) Ptolemy. Because this is ancient Egypt, Cleopatra and her brother are supposed to marry and rule together….and are thus immediately at odds.

In the middle of the familial drama is Arsinoe: She is the voice that unites the novels, both of which are told from alternating points of view. No longer a girl of 11, Arsinoe is now older, wiser and more in control of her emotions and her actions than she was when we last read of her woes. While she still adores her older sister (as younger sisters tend to do, even in 51 B.C.), she is less in awe, less sure of Cleopatra’s motives.

Ptolemy (the other voice in this novel) starts off at about the age Arsinoe was at the end of the last book. Unlike Arsinoe, he has been pampered, coddled and is the favorite of mother. But like his sister before him, Ptolemy grapples with adulthood (which comes early in ancient Egypt), how to exert his power and what it means to be a Ptolemy. He has not yet learned to manipulate and control his masses (or, at times, his reactions), but he is determined to make his mark on history.

As someone who knows about as much as the average person about this period of history, what struck me about the novel - particularly once Julius Caesar enters the picture - is that while I knew the ultimate outcome of Cleopatra and her reign, I could not predict what would happen from chapter to chapter. Holleman does a fantastic job of bringing her readers into the world of ancient Egypt, with its unexpectedly powerful eunuchs, rhetoricians, and generally conniving and untrustworthy staffs (think: a pre-historic Downton Abbey). This is as much a tale of family and betrayal as it is a piece of historical fiction.

I highly recommend this novel. It can stand alone as a story about Egypt’s most famous (or infamous) ruler or, of course, come as the follow-up to its wonderful predecessor.


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The Drowning King A Fall of Egypt Novel Emily Holleman Books Reviews

Fascinating story about a fascinating time. Well written.
An amazing look at a troubled time in Egypt. The four main characters, Arsinoe, Ptolemy, Cleopatra and Caesar are well-drawn and interesting. The author obviously did considerable research. She is to be commended for a fine job.
I have always wondered what happened to Cleopatra's siblings, this gives a personal account of what may have happened in their last, tragic days.
I had heard on the History Channel that Cleopatra had a younger sister named Arsinoe, an Egyptian patriot, who opposed the Roman occupation of Egypt. She had tried to launch a coup d'état against Cleopatra. Arsinoe was seized and taken to Rome in chains, but I couldn't find any other information about her. Then Arsinoe's remains were found and her face was able to be reconstructed. That really intrigued me! It might be said that Cleopatra was a globalist and Arsinoe was a nationalist. Emily Holleman does a remarkable job of describing the twisted history of the Ptolemy dynasty, the incest and the inter-familial murders. I highly recommend The Drowning King and her previous novel on the childhood of Arsinoe, Cleopatra's Shadow.
An elegant and sweeping sequel to Cleopatra's Shadows, this novel delves deeply into the lives of Cleopatra's siblings Arsinoe and Ptolemy, letting the reader see the often-described capitulation of Egypt to Roman rule from a new perspective. Arsinoe, whose world was shattered in Holleman's first novel, comes into her own with dazzling and devastating consequences in this story, and watching her develop as a character is fascinating and engaging. The fracturing of her relationship with Cleopatra is the fuel that drives the novel forward, while Ptolemy's struggle as king serves as a brilliant counterpoint to the story of the two sisters, which is also the story of Egypt itself.

The precision and detail of Holleman's writing took me to another world, and I devoured the novel over the course of three days, eager to sink back into Egypt and the vivid visually immersive scenes she paints page after page.

In Arsinoe and Ptolemy, Holleman has done something really commendable, bringing two ill-known characters, who are and always have been footnotes of history, to life in a way that gave me a real sense of the rhythms and stakes of the power struggles and family turmoil that rocked this dynasty. Clinging to scraps of power, wrestling with familial resentments and desperate desires to build a new future, these siblings strike the death nell of their dynasty, and their blind hope for the future contrasted with Cleopatra's cold practicality scores the book with tension and vigor.

There are stories about the central players of history, and stories about the rest of the world, and this manages to be both, in a way that comments simultaneously on the figures we know, and the ones we've never heard of.
Lovers of historical fiction - and those like me who generally don’t read historical fiction but were fans of Emily Holleman’s debut novel, Cleoptra’s Shadows -- will thoroughly enjoy this second allotment of Holleman's "Fall of Egypt" series.

The Drowning King begins about four years after the end of the first novel which culminated in the beheading of Cleopatra’s older sister (and King Ptolemy’s eldest daughter) Berenice Now it is Ptolemy himself who lays dying, and so this portion of the saga begins with an Egypt that is on the brink of a new era and a new reign That of Cleopatra and her brother (also named) Ptolemy. Because this is ancient Egypt, Cleopatra and her brother are supposed to marry and rule together….and are thus immediately at odds.

In the middle of the familial drama is Arsinoe She is the voice that unites the novels, both of which are told from alternating points of view. No longer a girl of 11, Arsinoe is now older, wiser and more in control of her emotions and her actions than she was when we last read of her woes. While she still adores her older sister (as younger sisters tend to do, even in 51 B.C.), she is less in awe, less sure of Cleopatra’s motives.

Ptolemy (the other voice in this novel) starts off at about the age Arsinoe was at the end of the last book. Unlike Arsinoe, he has been pampered, coddled and is the favorite of mother. But like his sister before him, Ptolemy grapples with adulthood (which comes early in ancient Egypt), how to exert his power and what it means to be a Ptolemy. He has not yet learned to manipulate and control his masses (or, at times, his reactions), but he is determined to make his mark on history.

As someone who knows about as much as the average person about this period of history, what struck me about the novel - particularly once Julius Caesar enters the picture - is that while I knew the ultimate outcome of Cleopatra and her reign, I could not predict what would happen from chapter to chapter. Holleman does a fantastic job of bringing her readers into the world of ancient Egypt, with its unexpectedly powerful eunuchs, rhetoricians, and generally conniving and untrustworthy staffs (think a pre-historic Downton Abbey). This is as much a tale of family and betrayal as it is a piece of historical fiction.

I highly recommend this novel. It can stand alone as a story about Egypt’s most famous (or infamous) ruler or, of course, come as the follow-up to its wonderful predecessor.