Cleopatra was definitely one of the most mysterious and interesting women of her time. Headley takes a stab at examining her end days with a tale that tries to present a possible cause for her suicide.

The book starts after her defeat, along with that of her true love Antony, at Actium. They have fled back to Alexandria, the capital of Egypt only to be pursued by Octavian. He wants vengeance for Antony's betrayal against Rome, and that means crushing him and the queen of Egypt. In a plot device borrowed right out of Romeo & Juliet, Antony receives word about his true love. Feeling betrayed, he opts to commit suicide. In truth, she is holed up in their mausoleum in the hopes of striking back at the newly, self-named Augustus.

She has turned to ancient magicks with the hopes of finding a solution. She calls upon the power of Sekhmet, the lion-headed goddess of war and vengeance in an attempt to defeat Augustus. The magic turns her into something not unlike a vampire. She is burned by silver and sunlight, and she needs the blood of humans to grow truly powerful. She is also able to take the shape of any creature and communicate with animals to gain their assistance.

It is her transformative powers that she uses to fake her suicide from a snake bite and strike out toward Rome. Augustus, who knows she still lives, encircles himself with witches from Britain, Thessaly, and mysterious lands near to Egypt with the hopes of protecting himself. After executing her son with Julius Caesar (Caesarian), Augustus also brings her three children with Antony to Rome with him as pawns.

One of the witches uses Antony's ashes calls his shade out of Hades with the hopes of using him against Cleopatra. This same witch also hopes to use the power Sekhmet has provided Cleopatra through their merger to free her own goddees, Hecate, who has been enslaved down in Hades to guard its entry. There is also a male witch with his own interests. He is hoping to protect his homeland from the growth of the Romans by assisting Augustus.

It is this mix of goals, objectives and interests that creates an interesting tale. And it is not just the humans themselves who are throwing things into the mix. Sekhmet is hoping to use the situation to take over the world and fill it with chaos. The result is an interesting concept, but one that moves a bit slowly. The characters are all portrayed interestingly, and I felt the need to keep reading to find out what was going to happen, but I also found it slow moving. There is a lot of talking about what different characters are worried about or what they are going to do, and this bog downs the tale a bit.

I was pleased to see that the author included an Author's Note defining what was true to history and what was played with for dramatic or creative license. It is clear that Headly put a great deal of time and effort into researching the true facts before creating this work of fiction.

I was surprised to hear that this book is the first in a planned trilogy. The volume seems to tie up the various plots and subplots. While I enjoyed the book, I don't think I liked it enough to want to read future volumes. I will have to see how I feel when they are released.