Melody Murray's Books

I was monumentally disappointed in this book. I've read a lot of ancient Egyptian history, including a lot about Cleopatra. I was hoping for new information, or at least old information synthesized into something new and insightful. What I got instead was a great deal of rehashing with a focus on Rome. Yes, yes, I understand that one can't get any clear picture of Cleopatra without a deep and thorough grounding in the politics and personae of Rome, but this book could have been just as easily titled "The Lives of Julius Caesar and Mark Antony, With Notes On Their Friend Cleopatra". I wanted more daily life, more Alexandria, more Egypt, more on the Bubonic Plague that Cleopatra had to deal with, more on the flooding of the Nile. Less on the Legions, the Senate, and the marriages of the children of Senators.I found the writing muddy and discursive. This book cried out for far more effective editing than it got.