Egypts's Sister by Angela Hunt

Egypts's Sister by Angela Hunt is this author's newest book out.  Just to clarify, I love this author's work and I also loved this newest book of hers.  Egypt's sister is a fictionalized story of Cleopatra the 7th (the one most people think of as Cleopatra) from her childhood through her death.  This story follows the life of Cleopatra's fictional Jewish childhood servant/friend Chava.  In this story Chava and Cleopatra, who in this story is called Urbi by family and friends, are fast friends as children and young adults.  They do everything together and Chava lives a charmed Jewish life which includes many luxuries not often enjoyed by Jews of this time.  Chava even has a slave given to her which lives with her.  Chava's father is the tutor of the palace children and therefore Chava is educated along with the palace children but also enjoys the luxury of living with the tutor so actually has a better education than the palace children.  Chava's father has an assignment in which Chava must go through the scrolls and find and write down all of God's names and their meaning.  It is interesting work but Chava has no idea how important that this knowledge will be in her future.  Chava heard God once say to her that "Your friendship with the queen lies in my hands.  You will be with her on her happiest day and her last.  And you, daughter of Israel will know yourself, and you will bless her".  As adults Chava is offered the gift of citizenship for herself and her family if she will only worship in the various temples of the Egyptians.  Chava is told she doesn't have to actually believe the temple worship is real and she can pick which ever god she choses and she can also continue her Jewish worship.  Chava turns down this offer because of her Jewish belief and this starts the beginning of the end of Chava's charmed life.  Cleopatra is deeply insulted by this refusal of her gift and has  Chava and her father are arrested and sold as slaves.  For the 15 years that Chava is a slave Chava grows stronger and though she first rejects some of God's teachings she eventually learns that God is still guiding and protecting her life while she is a slave.  Chava still can keep track of some of Cleopatra's work as queen while working as a slave and she never gives up on the hope that eventually she can buy her freedom and her father's and come back home.

Read this book if you are at all interested in history of the Jews or of Cleopatra.  Read this book is you just enjoy a good read.  This book is well written and chronicles Cleopatra's life well and in the back of the book even tells more historic background of the time.  This book is not preachy nor particularly religious in its writings.  This author is one of the best historical fiction writers that I read and I also try to read them as they come out because they are so good.  Do yourself a favor and read this book.
I received this book from BethanyHouse for this review.