The Ptolemies: A Novel

From a refreshingly antic new voice in historical fiction, this epically entertaining, irresistibly madcap novel re-creates an ancient family whose obsessions and dysfunctions would change the world, for better or worse.

They were the last pharaohs to rule Egypt. Ptolemy Soter (putative half-brother of Alexander the Great–his mother may have been raped by Alexander’s father) begins it all when he takes the kingdom of the Nile as his share of the empire and brings along Alexander’s carefully ...