History from a Woman's Perspective- A Book Blog

The Cleopatras: The Forgotten Queens of Egypt Author: Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones Genre: Nonfiction, History, Biography  Publisher: Basic Books Book Release Date: 2024 Pages: 353 Source: Netgalley/Publisher in exchange for an honest review. Synopsis: The definitive story of the seven Cleopatras, the powerful goddess-queens of ancient Egypt.         One of history’s most iconic figures, Cleopatra is rightly remembered as a clever and charismatic ruler. But few today realize that she was the last in a long line of Egyptian queens who bore that name.               In The Cleopatras , historian Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones tells the dramatic story of these seven incomparable women, vividly recapturing the lost world of Hellenistic Egypt and tracing the kingdom’s final centuries before its fall to Rome. The Cleopatras were Greek-speaking descendants of Ptolemy, the general who conquered Egypt alongside Alexander th...

Katherine the Queen: The Remarkable Life of Katherine Parr, the Last Wife of King Henry VIII Author: Linda Porter Genre: Nonfiction, History, Biography  Publisher: St. Martin’s Press Publication Date: 2024 Pages: 418 Source: Personal Collection  Synopsis: The general perception of Katherine Parr is that she was a provincial nobody with intellectual pretensions who became queen of England because the king needed a nurse as his health declined. Yet the real Katherine Parr was attractive, passionate, ambitious, and highly intelligent. Thirty-years-old (younger than Anne Boleyn had been) when she married the king, she was twice widowed and held hostage by the northern rebels during the great uprising of 1536-37 known as the Pilgrimage of Grace. Her life had been dramatic even before she became queen and it would remain so after Henry's death. She hastily and secretly married her old flame, the rakish Sir Thomas Seymour, and died shortly after giving birth to her only child in Sept...