My next guest is Eos/Harper Collins author Tracey O'Hara whose debut novel, Night's Cold Kiss, won the Australian R*BY Award 2010 and was an Aurealis Award finalist! And no wonder, because this book is seriously fabulous! She also writes scorching Spice Briefs as Tracie Sommers. I first met Tracey on the RWA Paranormal loop, and then finally for real at the Sydney conference where she gave me promo pep talks (which I'm trying to follow, honest!!!)And here she is, with the seductive Cleopatra and her forbidden loves.
While technically Cleopatra VII, Queen if Egypt is not Roman, she did have an affair with two of the most powerful men in Roman History and was driven to her death by a third. When I first starting planning this blog, it was going to be a about a love triangle, but after doing a little research to back up my facts – I realised that it was much more complex.
First – talk about forbidden love. Cleopatra first ruled alongside her father Ptolemy XII and was then married to not one, but two of her brothers, first Ptolemy XIII and then later Ptolemy XIV. It is also rumoured that she was instrumental is both of their deaths. Contrary to what Hollywood would have us believe – the marriages were apparently marriages in the traditional sense and not just a platonic marriage of state. Her parents Ptolemy XII and Cleopatra V had also been brother and sister and it was the way of the Egyptian ruling family.
While being married to her first brother, she met Gaius Julius Caesar. They were soon lovers and Cleo bore the much older Roman ruler a son, Caesarion. When Caesar had to return to Rome, Cleopatra followed him, in hopes to becoming his queen and setting up her son as the next in line to rule in Rome. But Caesar named his nephew, Augustus, as his successor and was soon after murdered. Cleo returned to Egypt with her son.
A few years later, after being accused of betraying Rome, Cleopatra was summoned before the great general Mark Antony. She arrived in style, on the royal barge, in all her finery and seduced Antony right off the bat. The two became lovers. And he returned to Alexandria with her for the winter.
I like to think that this was a love match. Octavian, the ruling Emperor of Rome, forced Mark into a marriage with Octavia, the Emperor’s sister. But the lure of the Queen of Egypt was too much. He returned to Egypt, divorced Octavia and married Cleo who went on to bear him three children.
The slight to the Emperor’s sister, and hence the Emperor himself, did not go unpunished. It started a war. Things didn’t go well for Mark and Cleo. When Octavian invaded Egypt in 30BC Mark Antony’s troops desert him and return Octavian. After their loss, Mark Antony commits suicide and Cleo follows suit by taking an asp to her breast (well the most popular theory anyway). Though Octavian does kill her son with Julius, Caesarion, he spares the three children she bore to Antony, taking them back to Rome raised by his sister Octavia Minor.
So a time in Roman history ruled by a woman who ruled her men. A clever, manipulative woman who brought down an empire, her Empire. The Last pharaoh of Egypt. Cleopatra VII
Thanks, Tracey! I'm looking forward to reading the second in your Dark Brethren Novels, Death's Sweet Embrace, due out next January. And to be in the running to win a copy of Night's Cold Kiss, just leave a comment for Tracey or tell us which kick ass heroine of the past you most admire!
And don't forget, you can still comment on Rachel Bailey's post to be in with a chance to win her book, and to enter the fab book bundle contest!
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