Dr Jane Draycott

The last two weeks has seen a couple of new reviews of my book come out in major publications.

The first, of the British edition Cleopatra’s Daughter: Egyptian Princess, Roman Prisoner, African Queen, in the Times Literary Supplement, by Professor Edith Hall, was a nice surprise. CD:EPRPAQ was published in the UK in November 2022, and while various newspapers and magazines requested review copies, the only places that actually published any reviews of it at the time were New Scientist and New Statesman, which was quite disappointing and didn’t help raise its profile and differentiate it from all the other books published in the lead up to Christmas. So it was great to see another one come out, presumably planned to tie in with the release of the Queen Cleopatra documentary on Netflix. I managed to track a copy down at my local W. H. Smith’s on Sauchiehall Street in Glasgow. You can read it online here, but unfortunately it’s behind a paywall. However, Professor Hall is a keen advocate of open access publishing, so she’s also uploaded the text to her blog, The Edithorial, and you can read it here.

The second is of the North American edition Cleopatra’s Daughter: From Roman Prisoner to African Queen, which is due to be published at the end of this month. This was also a nice surprise, as it’s in The Atlantic by Professor Mary Beard. You can read it online here, but unfortunately it’s also behind a paywall. Hopefully there will be a few more US reviews forthcoming over the next few weeks, and maybe even some Dutch ones, since the Dutch translation is likewise published at the end of this month and I’m going to be going to the Netherlands for my first book tour and doing some events in Amsterdam and Leiden next week.