The Time-Traveling Fashionista and Cleopatra, Queen of the Nile, by Bianca Turetsky, for Timeslip Tuesday

The Time-Traveling Fashionista and Cleopatra, Queen of the Nile (The Time-Traveling Fashionista #3) by Bianca Turetsky (2013), fell victim to the fate that many books I actually buy--once I own a book I paid for, it's so easy for me to feel no urgency to actually read it.  But now I have (yay!) and it can go join the first to books in this fun middle grade series on my time travel bookshelf.

Louise, a young fashionista, has already travelled back twice in time, thanks to the mysterious Traveling Fashionista Vintage Sale (by invitation only).  She's tried on two dresses, one which took her to the Titanic and one which took her to the court of Marie Antoinette.  This time she slips into a lavender Grecian gown, and is plunged into the life of Cleopatra--with a twist.  She's now a worker in the costume crew for the epic Hollywood movie, staring Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton!  But then she finds a necklace with a gorgeous pearl, and illicitly tries it on....and travels back in time again.

Now she's in the court of the real Cleopatra, a young woman fighting for power...and for her life.  Threats are everywhere, and soon Louise, now one of Cleopatra's handmaids, is wondering if she herself will make it home alive.  This isn't a time period I know all that much about, so I found nothing in the history to nitpick, and learned more about it in that graceful, pleasant way one learns history from reading fiction!

This is fairly easy time travel--Louise has an identity to fill in each different time, so language isn't an issue,  and although she has to keep her wits about her so as not to display her ignorance, she manages to muddle along well enough for her secret to be safe. 

It's a good story, with the magic of the time travel balanced by Louise's pragmatic thoughts. There's a touch of middle school angst in her real time that makes Louise seem very real and relatable...perhaps the bravest thing she does is to wear her vintage fashions to school.  

Something that really make these book stand out are the lovely illustrations by Sandra Suy-lovely dresses in particular!  And  of course the audience who will love this series most are the girls like Louise whose creativity uses fashion to flourish. This would not be me, but still I enjoyed them, and if there had been a fourth I would happily read it!

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