Cleopatra: A Novel

· Ballantine Books
Ebook
336
Pages
Eligible
This book will become available on February 24, 2026. You will not be charged until it is released.

About this ebook

Cleopatra tells her own story in this evocative and sensuous historical epic from the bestselling and award-winning author of Faebound and The Final Strife.

This stunning edition includes designed endpapers and a custom case stamp.


YOU KNOW MY NAME, BUT YOU DO NOT KNOW ME.

Your historians call me seductress, but I was ever in love's thrall.

Your playwrights speak of witchcraft, but my talents came from the gods themselves.

Your poets sing of my bloodlust, but I was always protecting my children.

How wilfully they refuse to concede that a woman could be powerful, strategic, and divinely blessed to rule.

Death will silence me no longer.

This is not the story of how I died. But how I lived.

About the author

Saara El-Arifi is an internationally bestselling and award winning author of fantasy and historical fiction. El-Arifi knew she was a storyteller from the moment she told her first lie. Over the years, she has perfected her tall tales into epic ones. She has lived in many countries, had many jobs, and owned many more cats. After a decade of working in marketing and communications, she returned to academia to complete a master’s degree in African studies specialising in Cleopatra’s myth and her impact on Black women. She currently resides in London as a full-time procrastinator.

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