Title: The Drowning King Series: Fall of Egypt #2
Author: Emily Holleman
Published: April 4, 2017
Genre(s): Historical Fiction
Page Count: 432
Rating:
Summary from Goodreads:It's the dawn of a new era for Egypt as Cleopatra and her brother, Ptolemy, are welcomed to the throne after their father's death. But joint rule breeds its own conflicts: can the Nile be shared? Long overlooked by his father in favor of the beguiling Cleopatra, Ptolemy is determined to prove his ability as both man and king-but, at eleven, he is no match for his elder sister, who's quick to assert her primacy throughout the land.
Their sister Arsinoe is torn between her siblings in one of history's greatest power struggles. As the palace echoes with rumors, scandals and betrayal, Arsinoe's love for her childhood friend Alexander deepens into a forbidden passion that could endanger both their lives. When Cleopatra is forced to flee a rebel uprising, Arsinoe decides she has no choice but to follow her sister into exile.
Yet while Cleopatra gathers an army to retake the crown, Arsinoe begins to doubt whether her sister is the champion Egypt needs. Faced with the choice of betraying her family or her country, Arsinoe will determine a kingdom's fate and the course of history.
More than just a good sequel to an excellent debut, The Drowning King stands well on its own merit. Here, Emily Holleman tells the story of the time surrounding Cleopatra’s infamous first meeting with Caesar, but from the perspective of her overshadowed younger siblings, Arsinoe and Ptolemy. It’s history through the eyes of the losers, and it’s brilliantly done—I would argue this book is much stronger than Cleopatra’s Shadows at almost every level.
Though this book is narrated from a dual perspective, the true protagonist here is Arsinoe. As she struggles to come out from the long shadow cast by her sister, her story is mirrored and offset by the similar struggles of her brother, Ptolemy. I think that what Holleman has done with these two books—and done very well—is to set up a narrative structure where Arsinoe’s story is directly compared with her siblings’. In the first book, it was her ill-fated sister Berenice; here, it’s Ptolemy. Both siblings die at the end of their respective books, while Arsinoe lives on. While of course we know tht Arsinoe herself will soon die, the way the author has structured her books sets Arsinoe up to be the more successful, clear-headed rebel: a true match for Cleopatra’s charisma and strength. She succeeds where her brother and sister fail.
Yet as I have mentioned before, Arsinoe remains more of an antihero than a hero. All of the characters in The Drowning King are morally versatile, and their choices are self-serving more than noble. Though Cleopatra, Arsinoe, and Ptolemy all claim to be fighting for Egypt’s best interests, they are all hungry for power; they all believe they are righteous and anointed by god. As a reader, I am sympathetic to Arsinoe because I know and understand her. Over the course of two books I have seen her grow from a petulant child to a woman who (honestly) is far better equipped to rule than her more-famous sibling. But I don’t delude myself into thinking that just because I like her, she is more worthy. For the common man, one queen is largely the same as another.
Complaints I had regarding Holleman’s prose in her first novel are absent here: Holleman has reined in her tendency to overblown metaphors, and because this book is less cerebral than Cleopatra’s Shadows, the narrative is more grounded in the time and place of Ptolemaic Egypt. The plot moves at a good pace, the characters are all interesting and well-rounded (I particularly liked the author’s vision of Caesar), and the end result is a polished and insightful historical novel. The Drowning King is an excellent book.
