supercheesegirl

I adore Judith Tarr (I don't know why no one else seems to read her!) but this one wasn't a standout for me, possibly because I knew going in exactly how it would end, as it's Cleopatra after all. Dione isn't a fantastic heroine/narrator for me - she was okay, but not as good as Meriamon in Lord of the Two Lands. And Tarr couldn't pull off the sexual awakening plotline as adeptly in this book as in that one, considering that this heroine is a mature woman with two children. I just wanted them to get to it already. The unexpected character death at the end threw me, though. Why did Tarr have to do that? (Only because it's exactly what that character would have done but still!!) Anyway, it was a book that bothered me, and in that sense Tarr was successful, I suppose, but this isn't one I'll reread.