Ms. Morton has created a brilliant ‘what if’ alternative history world in her Roma Nova series. She knows her stuff about the Romans and has taken the known facts of their history, turned it upside down, and provided us with some excellent entertainment.
Julia Prima is a prequel to the series itself (which is set in more-or-less contemporary times) This part of the saga goes back to the beginning – how Roma Nova came to be, and how the women became the leaders and organisers of an alternative empire.
Morton subtly changes history, the background details of the real past blend so well that the reader doesn't quite notice what is fact, what is fiction. We have adventure, mystery, bad villains, and romantic heroines and heroes. Everything needed for a darn good read, written by an excellent author.
So, good writing, intriguing plot, superb research, realistic characters, and an engrossing story. What more could we want?
"You should have trusted me. You should have given me a choice." AD 370, Roman frontier province of Noricum. Staying faithful to the Roman gods in a Christian empire can be lethal. Half-divorced Julia Bacausa is condemned to an emotional desert and a forced marriage, Lucius Apulius barely clings onto his posting in a military backwater. Strongly drawn to each other, they are soon separated, but Julia is determined not to lose the only man she will love.
Neither wholly married nor wholly divorced, Julia is trapped in the power struggle between the Christian church and her pagan ruler father.…
There are several possibilities for the disappearance of the two princes in the Tower [of London], and they have been debated and argued over for many years, but Ms. StJohn writes very compellingly about another possible truth behind this mystery of history.
We'll never know the truth of whether the princes were murdered, and by whom, or did they secretly survive perhaps? Either way, The Godmother's Secret gives an excellent explanation. Ms. StJohn's novels are all gripping, superbly written tales, and this one is absolutely no exception – in fact, probably her best yet.
If you knew the fate of the Princes in the Tower would you tell? Or forever keep the secret?May 1483: The Tower of London. When King Edward IV dies and Lady Elysabeth Scrope delivers her young godson, Edward V, into the Tower of London to prepare for his coronation, she is engulfed in political turmoil. Within months, the prince and his brother have disappeared, Richard III is declared king, and Elysabeth’s sister Margaret Beaufort conspires with her son Henry Tudor to invade England and claim the throne.
Desperate to protect her godson, Elysabeth battles the intrigue, betrayal and power of…
How
does Anna Belfrage produce book after wonderful book with (or so it
seems) as much ease as a conjuror performs an intriguing magic trick?
How
does she keep the Graham Saga going with each episode about the family
so compelling and exciting through the next generation - and the next?
Each new novel is exquisitely alive and fresh!
Times
of Turmoil is a gripping tale of apparently ordinary people following
their seemingly ordinary lives in Colonial America in 1718 – although
given that the main characters have experienced travel through time,
they are hardly ‘ordinary’.
Ms.
Belfrage’s research is spot on, with just enough backstory from the
previous books without overloading the details. An excellent series,
with this latest contribution, no exception.
When the only choice is to run, where do you run to? When the only sound is the song of the sea, do you listen? Or do you drown in the embrace of a mermaid?
Virginia 1708. Throughout childhood, Jesamiah Mereno has suffered the bullying of his elder half-brother. Then, on the day they bury their father, he flees his Virginia home, changes his name to Jesamiah Acorne, joins the crew aboard a privateer – and tries to avoid the ghosts of Jamaica and the beguiling lure of a mermaid...
