There are so many layers to this novel that it’s hard to summarize it, but Daughters of the Nile is about a mature Selene who comes into her own as a queen and a vessel of the goddess Isis. However, it’s not long before Selene is back in Rome, and Augustus seeks to claim both of her children, Princess Isidora and Prince Ptolemy, as his own.

But she must consummate her marriage to Juba to prove to Augustus that she is another man’s wife, in hopes of ending his obsession with making her his very own Cleopatra. Their marriage is not one based on love in fact, Selene has long held Juba’s loyalty to the emperor Augustus Caesar and his involvement in her parents’ deaths against him. ĭaughters of the Nile opens in 19 B.C., with a 20-year-old Selene five years into her marriage to King Juba II and her reign as the Queen of Mauretania. But having finished Daughters of the Nile with tears in my eyes, I’m a mess of emotions, which pretty much boil down to the fact that I had grown fond of Selene and wasn’t ready for her story to end. I had been eagerly awaiting the final book in Stephanie Dray’s trilogy about Cleopatra Selene, daughter of Cleopatra VII and Mark Antony, ever since I devoured the first two books, Lily of the Nile and Song of the Nile. So I will side with the emperor as I have always done. The emperor is a danger too but he would defend my children because he believes they are his. The admiral is a danger to my children and me. If Agrippa sees my children as a threat now, he will always see them as a threat. But there will be nothing but shame for me, because I must side with the emperor.

Daughters of the nile stephanie dray