Saara El-Arifi’s 2026 novel, Cleopatra, is a work of historical fantasy that reimagines the life of Egypt’s final pharaoh, Cleopatra, as a first-person narrative. The story is set in a world where the Greek-descended Ptolemaic dynasty possesses divine powers granted by Egyptian gods. Eighteen-year-old Cleopatra ascends to the throne bearing the mark of the goddess Isis. Unlike her siblings who have each been gifted with unique powers,  she lacks a magical gift of her own, forcing her to rely on intellect, political savvy, and academic study to shore up her reign against familial rivals and the encroaching power of Rome. El-Arifi holds a master’s degree in African studies, specializing in Cleopatra’s myth and its impact, bringing a scholarly, revisionist perspective to the legendary queen’s story.

The novel directly confronts the biased historical accounts that have long defined its subject, exploring themes such as The Use of Self-Narration as to Combat Historical Erasure, Misogyny as a Political Tool in a Patriarchal Society, and The Tension Between Personal Empathy and Political Ambition. El-Arifi is an internationally bestselling author known for her epic fantasy works, including The Ending Fire trilogy and The Faebound trilogy. Her debut novel, The Final Strife (2022), was shortlisted for several honors, including the British Fantasy Awards for Best Fantasy Novel and Best Newcomer.

This guide refers to the 2026 Ballantine Books edition.

Content Warning: The source text and this guide contain depictions of graphic violence, sexual content, sexual harassment, sexual assault, death by suicide, illness or death, and animal death.

Plot Summary

Set in the ancient Mediterranean world, the novel reimagines the life of Cleopatra VII as a first-person narrative told by the pharaoh herself across millennia. In this version of history, the Ptolemy dynasty, the Greek-descended rulers of Egypt, possesses genuine divine powers: Each member is marked at birth by an Egyptian god and granted a supernatural gift. Cleopatra addresses the reader directly, declaring that this is not the story of how she died but how she lived.

In 51 BCE, 18-year-old Cleopatra plays senet, an ancient board game, on a balcony of the Lighthouse of Alexandria with Charmion, her lifelong companion and handmaiden. A messenger arrives with news that her father, Ptolemy XII, has died. Though Cleopatra bears the mark of the goddess Isis on the back of her neck, she has not yet received any divine power, a source of deep insecurity for her. Her younger brother, Ptolemy XIII, called Mikro Theos (“little god”), can breathe underwater—a gift from the crocodile god Sobek. Arsinoe, her 14-year-old sister, speaks the language of birds and commands them through her ibis, Qar, a gift from the god Thoth. Cleopatra swims to the palace on Antirhodos island and ascends the throne, announcing her name as Cleopatra Thea Philopator, meaning “father-loving goddess.”

From the start, Cleopatra faces opposition from Pothinus, a eunuch regent and tutor to her brother, Theos. She spends her first two years as pharaoh rooting out corruption, improving trade, and building aqueducts to cope with drought. She also begins constructing a temple to Isis, hoping to attract the goddess’s attention. In the Library of Alexandria, she studies healing remedies with Archibios, a librarian from Damascus, and begins sneaking out of the palace disguised as a commoner named “Selene” to treat sick citizens.

When the Roman general, Pompey, arrives in Egypt fleeing Julius Caesar’s forces, Arsinoe’s ibis, Qar, attacks him, gouging out his eye, before Arsinoe stabs him with a saber provided by Pothinus. Theos beheads his corpse. Cleopatra notices the matching weapons the siblings wield and suspects they are in league with Pothinus against her. Soon after, a storyteller attacks Cleopatra with a concealed ivory blade. Charmion saves her life, taking a deep gash to the cheek. Cleopatra stitches the wound herself and keeps the dagger on a chain around her neck.

Pothinus encourages Cleopatra to travel south to Hermonthis for a religious ceremony, leaving Theos in Alexandria. While she is away, Caesar arrives in the capital, and Theos moves to seize sole control of the throne. Cleopatra’s Aunt Neferu, a high priestess, gives her a coin on which Cleopatra’s profile has been replaced by an eagle, evidence of Pothinus’s treasonous intent. Cleopatra devises a plan: Charmion will impersonate the queen on the returning royal barge while Cleopatra slips into the Nile and enters Alexandria in disguise. With the help of Apollodorus, a weaver she once healed, Cleopatra infiltrates the palace through a secret tunnel system and reaches her chambers, now occupied by Caesar.

She hides in her chambers, revealing herself to Caesar when he returns. Their negotiation is frank: Caesar will support her claim to the throne in exchange for repayment of her father’s debts to Rome. Cleopatra demands Pothinus’s removal and Charmion’s release from captivity. At breakfast the next morning, Theos reluctantly accepts the arrangement, but Arsinoe storms out. That afternoon, Arsinoe and Theos flee the palace with soldiers, killing guards loyal to Cleopatra, including Ahmose, the head of her royal guard. From the departing barge, Arsinoe reveals that she, not Pothinus, has been the mastermind behind the rebellion.

Civil war engulfs Alexandria. During the siege, the fire from a burning fleet accidentally spreads to the Library of Alexandria, destroying its sacred tree of knowledge, a divine tree whose blossoms unfurl as scrolls of new wisdom. Against Cleopatra’s instructions, Caesar follows her into the city and assassinates Pothinus, who is shouting insults against the queen in the public square. The shared danger draws Cleopatra and Caesar together— they become lovers, and Cleopatra becomes pregnant.

Caesar goes missing at sea during a skirmish but swims ashore alive. He organizes a parley between Cleopatra and her siblings, but Arsinoe refuses to surrender and pushes Theos into the sea, where his heavy gold armor drags him into the depths. Cleopatra’s youngest brother, Ptolemy, whose gift from the god Anubis allows him to foretell deaths on the day they occur, had predicted no one would die that day. Cleopatra realizes Theos, who can breathe underwater, did not die but became trapped beneath the waves. Arsinoe flees Egypt.

With the war won, Cleopatra gives birth to her son, Caesarion. When a soothsayer finds no divine mark on the baby, the first such absence in the dynasty’s history, Cleopatra panics, fearing she has displeased the gods. She has the soothsayer executed, secretly takes Caesarion to a tattoo artist who inks the eye of Horus onto his thigh, then kills the artist with poisoned needles to prevent discovery. She publicly announces Caesarion is blessed by Horus. When a governor later tries to expose her lack of healing power at a feast, Charmion disguises herself as a noblewoman and fakes a collapse. Cleopatra performs a theatrical healing that cements the myth of her divine gift.

Caesar departs for Rome, where he is named emperor. During a visit, Cleopatra meets Marcus Antonius in the Temple of Venus. Without her royal garments, she is unrecognizable, and Antonius knows her only as “Selene.” Their unguarded conversation marks the beginning of their connection. During Caesar’s triumphal procession, Arsinoe is paraded as a prisoner in chains and Qar is shot from the sky. The crowd calls for mercy, and Cleopatra spares her sister, who is exiled to Ephesus. Watching Arsinoe led in chains, Cleopatra makes a private vow that the same disgrace will never befall her.

On the Ides of March, 44 BCE, Ptolemy foretells Caesar’s death. Caesar is assassinated by members of his Senate, and his will names his grand-nephew Octavian, not Caesarion, as heir. Antonius urges Cleopatra to flee Rome. Back in Egypt, grief consumes her. She drinks heavily and treats her youngest brother, Ptolemy, cruelly. One morning, he asks for a headache remedy, and she tells him to brew willow bark. Ptolemy takes wolfsbane from her medicine bag and dies. Whether she misspoke, he misheard, or he acted deliberately remains unclear. Cleopatra is now the last surviving Ptolemy sibling.

Over the following years, Cleopatra recovers through work, opening hospitals and stabilizing Egypt. She orders Arsinoe’s execution through Antonius as part of political negotiations with Rome and learns of her sister’s death when a white ibis feather falls at her feet. A prolonged courtship with Antonius follows. They become lovers, marry secretly in the Temple of Isis, and have three children: twins Cleopatra Selene and Alexander Helios, and, later, Ptolemy Philadelphus. None bears a divine mark.

Tensions with Octavian escalate. At a ceremony in Alexandria known as the Donations of Alexandria, Antonius proclaims Caesarion as Caesar’s heir and distributes conquered territories among his and Cleopatra’s children. Octavian seizes Antonius’s will and reads it to the Roman senate as evidence that Anotonius has committed an act of treason. Octavian declares war on Cleopatra, framing the conflict as Rome defending itself against a foreign queen. At the Battle of Actium in Greece, betrayals and desertions cripple their forces. Cleopatra devises a desperate retreat, sacrificing ships as a diversion to allow the fleet’s escape.

Back in Alexandria, Octavian’s fleet appears. Cleopatra gathers her children, instructs Charmion to escape with them through the tunnels, and repeats her vow: “I will not be led in triumph.” She carves a farewell to Antonius on obsidian, locks herself in the Temple of Isis, and prepares wolfsbane poison. Antonius, having ridden ahead of his army, reads the farewell and stabs himself with the ivory dagger on the temple steps, believing Cleopatra already dead. She pulls him inside and holds him as he dies. Charmion appears, having refused to flee. Together they lace golden hairpins with wolfsbane and die side by side.

Cleopatra awakens in a crimson realm where Isis reveals the truth: The dynasty’s powers were never gifts but a curse, punishment for the original Ptolemy Sōter’s desecration of sacred tombs. Cleopatra’s own curse is the cruelest: resurrection. She can never die permanently. Thrust back into the mortal realm, she dresses Charmion in her own crown and cloak to deceive Octavian, escapes through the tunnel, and finds her children waiting with a hidden boat.

In the Epilogue, Cleopatra describes millennia of rebirths. Caesarion is captured and killed by Octavian’s forces. Selene and Helios are taken and raised by Octavia, Octavian’s sister. Cleopatra later travels to see Selene reigning as Queen of Mauretania but does not reveal herself. She concludes by reclaiming every label placed upon her and declaring herself undefinable: “This is not the story of how I died. For death will forever evade me […] this is the story of how I lived. And live still” (332). She lives countless lives under many names, watching her legend distort through centuries of art and propaganda.