Immortal City

The Immortal City (Magicians of Venice)- Amy Kulvalainen
BHC Press
Release Date: September 19, 2019

Rating:
📚📚📚📚📚

Synopsis: In the heart of Venice, a woman is sacrificed to a forgotten god, sparking a mystery lost for thousands of years.

Dr. Penelope Bryne is ridiculed by the academic community for her quest to find the remnants of Atlantis, but when an ancient and mysterious script is found at a murder site, she flies to Venice determined to help the police before the killer strikes again.

Penelope has spent her entire life trying to ignore the unexplainable and magical history of Atlantis, but when she meets the enigmatic Alexis Donato, everything she believes will be challenged. Little does she know, Alexis has spent the last three years doing his best to sabotage Penelope's career so doesn't learn the truth--Atlantis had seven magicians who survived, and who he has a duty to protect.

As Alexis draws her into the darkly, seductive world of magic and history, Penelope will have to use her heart as well as her head if she is to find the answers she seeks. 

With the new MOSE system due to come online, and Carnivale exploding around them, Penelope and Alexis will have to work together to stop the killer and prevent dark magic from pulling Venice into the sea.

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Dr Penelope Byrne has become a pariah on the outskirts of the academic world, ridiculed for her theories on the lost island of Atlantis.  When symbols appear at a Venetian murder scene that match symbols she believes belong to Atlantis, Penelope goes to help the investigation.  But she doesn't come close to the truth until meeting the mysterious Alexis Donavato.  He may be able to help find the murderer, but only by exposing new secrets: that the city of Venice, and the rest of the world, are in danger from an evil Alexis thought drown with Atlantis ten thousand years ago.

Penelope is a strong, stubborn woman who refuses to stay down when her parents, her colleagues, and the academic world knock her down.  She thinks of herself as an ordinary, risk-adverse person, but can't deny the part of her imagination that wishes magic and dreams were real, and that there is something special she is supposed to do with her life.  So when a Venetian detective asks for her help on a case, Pen is on a flight to Venice before she thinks about it.  Penelope is a wonderful heroine- pragmatic, logical, yet a dreamer with an open mind about the world around her.  She accepts that things aren't always what they seem, and more importantly, she accepts that love and fate can arrive when they are least expected. She wasn't looking for a man, but when she meets Alexis she is willing to accept that not all life's plans fall out the way we expect.

Alexis is a man who takes things seriously: protect his people, protect Atlantis' secrets, and stay away from mortals.  He's seen death and destruction so often over the years he can't see himself as anything but a jaded warrior.  But Penelope gets under his skin before he knows what's happened, and he is helpless to deny the incredible pull between them.  As he helps Penelope solve the mystery that brought her to Venice, he realizes that the threat is worse than mortals can imagine, and he and the magicians of Atlantis need to work past their fears to protect the world again.

The Immortal City is a fantastic book that gives magic lovers an entirely new world to enjoy, and leaves you waiting breathlessly to see what will happen next.  Well written, edge of your seat action, and marvelous chemistry between Alexis and Penelope kept me reading until I had devoured the book in one sitting, and was only disappointed that there wasn't a sequel out yet to go on to!  Full of delightful secondary characters that I can't wait to find out more about (I especially loved Marco and hope he shows up in more of the series! Loved his "Venetian" version of CPR at the end!), magic to learn, and pasts to explore, the Magicians of Venice promises to be a must-read series for fantasy lovers!  

I received an ARC of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review

Strangers She Knows

Strangers She Knows (Cape Charade 3)- Christina Dodd
HQN Books
Release Date: September 17, 2019

Rating:
📚📚📚📚

Synopsis: I have three deadly problems:

1. I've seriously offended a maniacal killer.

2. I just had a bullet removed from my brain.

3. My new daughter is growing up too fast--and she's in the line of fire.

Living on an obscure, technology-free island off California means safety from the murderer who hunts Kellen Adams and her new family.... Or does it? Family time becomes terror-time, and at last, alone, Kellen faces a killer playing a cruel game. Only one can survive, and Kellen knows who must win...and who must die.

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After years of fighting for it, Kellen Adams is finally starting to have the life and family she always wanted.  Her only problems now consist of recovering from brain surgery and her daughter Rae growing up too fast- while Kellen is only just getting used to even having a daughter! Then Kellen and husband Max learn that their old enemy, psychotic serial killer Mara Phillips, has escaped prison and is hunting them down.  The small family moves to a tiny, technology-free island off the coast of California for safety while the professionals track Mara down.  Family time has potential for bonding time, but also for danger when Mara and a typhoon visit the island.  Kellen knows it's up to her to face Mara- and only one of them can come out of this game alive.

Strangers She Knows concludes Christina Dodd's Cape Charade series (Dead Girl Running, What Doesn't Kill Her) in intense style. The trilogy has followed Kellen Adams: Army veteran, hotel manager, and a woman who has had more than her share of hardships, danger, and surprises in life, as she becomes part of a family with Max and Rae while still balancing danger and duty. The first part of Strangers focuses mostly on Kellen getting herself back together both physically and mentally, and the three of them creating memories and bonds that they missed out on as Rae was growing up without Kellen.  This includes some humorous father-daughter bonding over repairing (or trying to) a F-100 truck, discovering the story of the previous owners of the island, and wonderful reactions to dynamite in the fridge that are classic Kellen and Max. 

 Mara Phillips (Dead Girl Running) was supposed to be locked up forever, but in true criminal mastermind fashion, Mara escapes and comes after Kellen and anyone else she believes betrayed her.  When Dodd decides to go for a crazed and disturbing villain, she comes up with a villain who will chill your blood- and Mara is definitely her crowning achievement! The last hundred or so pages of Strangers, where Mara truly sets her plans into motion, is a non-stop terrifying roller coaster of action and emotion.  

New readers won't feel completely lost since enough background is provided to Kellen's former life and Mara to keep them going, but I think readers will certainly get the most out the characters and their growth by reading the trilogy in order. And I don't think I'm giving away any spoilers when I say I hope I'm not the only one who had the ending of Jaws in the back of their minds when reading the grand finale of Strangers. Followed closely by thinking: I never saw that coming and of course that's what would happen.   Readers of suspense thrillers by Jayne Ann Krentz and J.D. Robb, and Christina Dodd's earlier thrillers, will defiantly enjoy the adventures of Strangers She Knows!

I received an ARC of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review

Well Met

Well Met- Jen DeLuca
Berkley/Penguin Group
Release Date: September 3, 2019

Rating:
📚📚📚📚📚

Synopsis: Emily knew there would be strings attached when she relocated to the small town of Willow Creek, Maryland, for the summer to help her sister recover from an accident, but who could anticipate getting roped into volunteering for the local Renaissance Faire alongside her teenaged niece? Or that the irritating and inscrutable schoolteacher in charge of the volunteers would be so annoying that she finds it impossible to stop thinking about him?

The faire is Simon's family legacy and from the start he makes clear he doesn't have time for Emily's lighthearted approach to life, her oddball Shakespeare conspiracy theories, or her endless suggestions for new acts to shake things up. Yet on the faire grounds he becomes a different person, flirting freely with Emily when she's in her revealing wench's costume. But is this attraction real, or just part of the characters they're portraying?  

This summer was only ever supposed to be a pit stop on the way to somewhere else for Emily, but soon she can't seem to shake the fantasy of establishing something more with Simon or a permanent home of her own in Willow Creek.

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Emily was in a rough place in her life and completely ready to drop everything and move to a small town in Maryland to help her older sister when she had a car accident that put her out of commission for a few months.  Driving to appointments, chauffeuring her teenage niece Caite around, no problem. Emily (like so many of us) is way more comfortable fixing someone else's life than her own.  Then she gets roped into volunteering with Caite at the town's annual Renaissance Faire and meets English teacher Simon.  Simon sees the Faire as his brother's legacy and believes he's the only one who can run things the way they need to go.  So Emily's relaxed approach to life and wenching don't go over well with him- which reminds her too much of her jerk ex-fiancé.  They seem to clash every time they meet: until the Faire is on.  Because Simon's sexy pirate and Emily's tavern wench hit things off a lot better than their mundane counterparts.  Can Faire and real life mix into a happily ever after or is this a well met summer fling that will end when summer is over?

Debut author Jen DeLuca gives readers a romance that is both familiar and fresh.  Emily and Simon can't seem to get along, always say the wrong things, and poor first impressions make it look like it's going to be a long summer for them both.  Using the Renaissance Faire as the way for the two to get to know each other in new ways is a great twist and tons of fun.  DeLuca's own Faire experiences come through loud and clear and whisks readers into a weekend world where suddenly far more is possible than in mundane life.  Emily, who has always felt like an outsider, slowly becomes a part of the Faire world and through the Faire she becomes a part of small Willow Creek town life.  She's friendly and caring, always willing to do what she can to help others, always putting others first.  At the same time she feels like the odd one out, who others let do things for them but forget as soon as she isn't needed.  Her jerk ex-fiancé used her and left her wondering if she deserves to come first in anyone's life- from family to friends to herself.  It's wonderful watching Em begin to regain the confidence she must have once had and grow into herself over the course of the book.  

Simon is a little harder to get to know because Well Met is told through Emily's point of view, so we only see him through her eyes.  But she's not too proud to admit when she starts to see beneath Simon's surface and who he could be if he gives himself the chance. Simon has lived in his older brother's shadow all his life and now Sean is gone and Simon has to figure out what happens next for him.  Like Em, the reader can't help but be attracted to Simon's pirate alter-ego during the Faire, and you can't help but be thrilled when she gives the growing chemistry between them a chance. 

Deluca thrills is this wonderful romantic debut, full of sparkling, snarky dialogue; delightful, laugh out loud  humor; delicious chemistry; and two main characters you're cheering for each step of the way as they find themselves behind the shadows of uncertainty and the expectations of others.  Well Met is a definite must read for fans of romantic comedy like Christina Lauren and Janet Evanovich and is a book that's probably going to become one of my staple, feel good rereads. DeLuca has set a high bar for her future books- I can't wait to see what she brings us next! 

I received an ARC of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review

Bringing Down the Duke

Bringing Down the Duke- Evie Dunmore
Berkley/Penguin Group
Release Date: September 3, 2019

Rating:
📚📚📚

Synopsis: England, 1879. Annabelle Archer, the brilliant but destitute daughter of a country vicar, has earned herself a place among the first cohort of female students at the renowned University of Oxford. In return for her scholarship, she must support the rising women's suffrage movement. Her charge: recruit men of influence to champion their cause. Her target: Sebastian Devereux, the cold and calculating Duke of Montgomery who steers Britain's politics at the Queen's command. Her challenge: not to give in to the powerful attraction she can't deny for the man who opposes everything she stands for.

Sebastian is appalled to find a suffragist squad has infiltrated his ducal home, but the real threat is his impossible feelings for green-eyed beauty Annabelle. He is looking for a wife of equal standing to secure the legacy he has worked so hard to rebuild, not an outspoken commoner who could never be his duchess. But he wouldn't be the greatest strategist of the Kingdom if he couldn't claim this alluring bluestocking without the promise of a ring...or could he?

Locked in a battle with rising passion and a will matching her own, Annabelle will learn just what it takes to topple a duke....

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Annabelle Archer, destitute and living on her cousin's charity as an unpaid house drudge, gets the opportunity to become one of the first women accepted to Oxford.  She is offered a stipend to attend in exchange for supporting a women's suffrage movement.  When handing out pamphlets causes her to meet Sebastian, Duke of Montgomery, things quickly spiral out of control.  Trying to convince Montgomery to support the movement brings her into a world of house parties, Christmas dinners, and high company she isn't sure how to handle- and a stubborn, blue-blooded duke she knows she shouldn't fall in love with.  When they keep getting thrown together, can passion overcome society's obstacles or will they both be restricted by their duties?

Bringing Down the Duke is a debut novel by Evie Dunmore and has been getting a lot of advance hype.  I have to admit it's a hard book for me to review because I'm not really sure how I felt about it- or whether I even liked it.  It has some of the standard tropes I count on to make a good plot/conflict: our hero is a duke on a mission to get back his ancestral home and rebuild the fortunes that his father gambled away, our heroine is a poor commoner trying to earn independence.  He instantly misjudges her as an opportunist out to get money and/or marry into the nobility.  She has some baggage about nobility in her past and isn't very impressed by overbearing men.  He expects to say 'jump' and have people ask 'how high?' while she is more likely to look him in the eye and ask 'why should I?'  The book also focuses on a time period and subject that don't usually get highlighted in romance novels: the 1879 women's suffrage movement and attempting to repeal the Married Women's Property Act. Annabelle is a smart woman who (rightfully) resents having to live off the charity of her stupid cousin- especially when that charity means she's allowed to live in his house and work as an unpaid servant and have no life of her own. She sees the chance to go to Oxford and study ancient Greece as a step towards gaining independence.  So far, so good. It's after that that things got a little shaky for me.

For one thing, it was hard for me to get a good idea of what Annabelle wanted with her life.  Ok, she doesn't want what she has now and she wants to be treated with some respect and have a say in her own life.  But I never got a real sense that she had a goal past that. She studied ancient Greece because that's what her father studied and taught her and she was good with Latin and Greek.  Was it fascinating to her? Did she have a drive to go to archaeological sites and do her own research and present her own theories? I don't know.  Was she interested in getting an education so she could go back home and be a paid governess of the local gentry? That's what she says in order to go, but probably wasn't really the plan. I never got a sense she had a goal in mind.  Did she really care about the suffrage movement? You get the feeling at first that the answer is no: she participates because that's what it takes to keep her stipend.  Was she interested in the movement and applied because of that? Where did she hear about the stipend in the first place? Maybe not important things but it all made me question how deeply we were getting to see her.  She does argue the logic of why a woman should be able to keep her property on marriage and gets in the face of anyone who suggests that she isn't a man's intellectual equal but takes that as a personal attack instead of for women in general.  

Sebastian is pretty closed off for the whole book.  You know what he wants: to get his ancestral seat back, to restore his family's good name and fortune, to have his younger brother do what he's told, and to have Annabelle as a mistress.  The more time he spends with her, the more he wants her- probably because she is one of those rare people who treats him as a person and not a duke.  He admits if she were more his social equal he'd marry her, but sees nothing wrong or insulting with saying that since that isn't the case, she should be his mistress.  He's insulted she doesn't see this as a great opportunity, since she clearly is attracted to him.  It's an attitude he carries through pretty much the whole book and with all his interactions with everyone: I know best, I am the best, don't question me. That makes it really hard to like him.  

There is a lot of angst and longing because of the obstacles in the way of Sebastian and Annabelle's happily ever after.  Secondary characters are mostly flat and unknowable.  Some, like Sebastian's brother Peregrine, are completely unlikable (he's the party-going frat boy type who rebels against the idea of taking up any responsibility by acting like a spoiled brat of 5 and running away from home when his brother signs him up for the Navy at the rather improbable age of 19). 

The writing is choppy, especially in the beginning. Things would go from fine to awkward: Sebastian would be getting address as Your Grace and then suddenly getting called "Duke", Annabelle would suddenly be speaking or thinking far too modernly, and (while I'm no expert) her clothing styles seemed to me more 1812 than 1879.  Maybe these are mistakes that could be explained away as being a writer's first novel, but they made things jarring for me.  On the other hand, I did keep reading and hoping for some kind of a happy ending.  And (spoiler alert) while it happens far too fast and improbably conveniently, in the end our heroes do get there.  Whether I liked the journey enough to read the next book in the series Dunmore comes up with, I'm not sure.

I was up and down on this book, but there is potential in it.

I received an ARC of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review

Securing Piper

Securing Piper (SEAL of Protection: Legacy Series)- Susan Stoker
Amazon Digital Services
Release Date: August 20, 2019

Rating:
📚📚📚📚

Synopsis: What started as an adventure, soon became hell. Piper Johnson’s thrilled to spend time in Timor-Leste with her best friend, a Peace Corps volunteer…until civil unrest erupts throughout the countryside, including an attack at the orphanage the women were visiting. With the aid of a SEAL team sent to extract the government employee, Piper flees with the only other known survivors—three young orphan girls. Piper wasn’t able to save her friend, but she’ll be damned if she leaves the girls to the mercy of child traffickers in the country’s impoverished capital. However, taking them with her to the States requires something drastic, something crazy…something she can’t do alone.

What started as a mission, soon becomes fate. Since nearly dying on a previous op, Beckett “Ace” Morgan has no time for regrets. Life is far too short. So when he learns the brave, beautiful, selfless woman he’s rescued has a better chance of getting three orphans out of the country if she’s married, he doesn’t hesitate. Ace marries her then and there, instantly gaining the family he’s always wanted. With time, he knows his respect for Piper can grow into love, and meanwhile, he’s saved both her and their new daughters from a fast-spreading rebel incursion.Protecting his girls on foreign soil turns out to be the easy part of the team’s mission. Protecting them from a threat waiting at home may be the biggest fight of Ace’s life. 

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Piper joined her best friend Kaylee in Timor-Leste for what was supposed to be a nice vacation. Kaylee would show Piper the villages she worked at for Peace Corps, they'd catch up, and Piper would get a break from work.  What neither expected was for that to be when rebellion erupts across the country and the orphanage they were visiting gets attacked.  Kaylee hid Piper with three girls and went to find more. She never returned. Ace's SEAL team went into Timor-Leste to find Piper and Kaylee- and found Piper with three girls instead.  They may think they've seen some of the worst the world has to offer, but in the midst of darkness, these girls show them trust and love they didn't expect.  Ace marries Piper to help her adopt the girls and bring them to America, but danger isn't exclusive to foreign countries.

Securing Piper gives a modern (and lovely) twist to the marriage of convenience trope. In this case, it ensures Piper can adopt all three girls before leaving the country (some Tex computer magic may also have helped). Piper and Ace have seen the situation the girls will be in if they stay and that, plus the bond they've already developed with the girls, means neither of them are willing to leave them behind.  It's an eye opening situation, both for them and for the reader, and instead of yelling that they are crazy you're cheering it all along. 

Piper and Ace connect from the beginning- they are a relationship that highlight how well Stoker can make chemistry sizzle between two people without being near a bed. The connection between the team members is great, and despite not really being a fan of kids, I ended up enjoying how Rani, Sinta, and Kemala touch everyone on the team, not just Ace and Piper.  Stoker also does a fantastic job balancing suspense, menace, danger, and forgiveness when it comes to her bad guy.  Without giving it away, this is a book of love and forgiveness even when something seems unforgivable.  Which is a theme that may come back and haunt all of these characters in a future book. Instead of giving the reader hints for just the next book in the series, Stoker also sets up the last book in the series- and while there is no cliff-hanger to Piper and Ace's story, I for one found myself yelling at the end of the book: how can you make us wait a whole year until that story!! The answer of course, is that Stoker is a prolific enough writer that she's keeping busy with several other series for the reader to enjoy while waiting- and that she probably secretly enjoys a bit of maniacal laughter at stringing along the readers as much as she does her heroes.

Securing Piper keeps up the best of Susan Stoker (Securing Caite) traditions: jungle rescues, hot-yet- compassionate heroes, and relatable could-be-you heroines.  A must read for fans of Stoker and her series, or for those just discovering the author.

I received an ARC of this book from BookSprout in exchange for an honest review

Syria's Secret Library

Syria's Secret Library: Reading and Redemption in a Town Under Siege- Mike Thomson
PubcliAffairs/Hachette Book group
Release Date: August 20, 2019

Rating:
📚📚📚📚📚

Synopsis: Daraya lies on the fringe of Damascus, just southwest of the Syrian capital. Yet for four years it lived in another world. Besieged by government forces early in the Syrian Civil War, its people were deprived of food, bombarded by heavy artillery, and under the constant fire of snipers. But deep beneath this scene of frightening devastation lay a hidden library. While the streets above echoed with shelling and rifle fire, the secret world below was a haven of books.

Long rows of well-thumbed volumes lined almost every wall: bloated editions with grand leather covers, pocket-sized guides to Syrian poetry, and no-nonsense reference books, all arranged in well-ordered lines. But this precious horde was not bought from publishers or loaned by other libraries--they were the books salvaged and scavenged at great personal risk from the doomed city above.

The story of this extraordinary place and the people who found purpose and refuge in it is one of hope, human resilience, and above all, the timeless, universal love of literature and the compassion and wisdom it fosters.

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How do people cope with disaster, war, hunger, and despair?  How do they live day after day in circumstances that no one who hasn't lived it can ever really imagine?  Syria's Secret Library offers readers a glimpse of hope for humanity in war-ravaged Syria.  When Assad's regime began cracking down, and then bombing, regions that protested his dictatorship, one of those towns hoping for change in Syria was the ancient town of Daraya.  Home to students and engineers, families and generations of farmers, Daraya had long been known for peaceful protests in favor of human rights and democracy.  When Assad struck back, Daraya became a besieged town regularly bombed and cut off from the rest of Syria.  Those who lived there rarely-if ever- had contact with families outside Daraya, either because of poor communications or because of the fear that their calls would be monitored and the families considered political enemies of the regime.  Children no longer had schools to go to, and people soon were limiting their rations to one bowl of watery soup per day to try and stretch out what little food they had while waiting for outside help to rescue them.

It is in this terrifying world that BBC journalist Mike Thomas began making his connections, and talking to a few of the brave people of Daraya through often erratic internet communications.  And while he discovers the terrible situation they are in, he also learns about how they retain hope for the future: their secret library.  A core group of locals began rescuing books from bombed and abandoned houses and, while carefully keeping track of the books in hopes that one day their owners would be able to return to Daraya and claim them, these brave men carried the books off to a relatively secure basement.  Over time a library system developed: people could check books out and return them, lecture series on a wide variety of subjects were held, and men, women, and children were able to escape the stresses of daily life into the safety of a beloved library and books for a few hours each day.  

Throughout Syria's Secret Library we come to care about the individuals Thomson talks to, we admire their courage and their strength in the face of overwhelming circumstances.  And there is nothing more courageous than their belief that books and knowledge will be what not only eventually topples the regime, but what truly rebuilds Syria.  That books are food for the soul, their stories and words as essential to human beings as oxygen. And we can all hope that books will triumph in the end, and creation and hope will overcome destruction and hatred. 

This is a highly emotionally impactful story of people the Western world has seen and understood only briefly from snippets on the nightly news. Thomson clearly cares for each of these people, not as interview subjects, but as friends- and hopes to reach out to the rest of us to show us the civilians beneath the rhetoric.  A story combining the terrors and tragedy of war with the hopes and indomitable spirit of people, this is a true-life story of everyday people showing humanity at its inspiring best.

I received an ARC of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review

Agrippina

Agrippina: The Most Extraordinary Woman in the Roman World- Emma Southon
Pegasus Books
Release Date: August 6, 2019

Rating:
📚📚📚📚📚

Synopsis: Sister of Caligula. Wife of Claudius. Mother of Nero. The story of Agrippina, at the center of imperial power for three generations, is the story of the Julio-Claudia dynasty―and of Rome itself, at its bloody, extravagant, chaotic, ruthless, and political zenith.

In her own time, she was recognized as a woman of unparalleled power. Beautiful and intelligent, she was portrayed as alternately a ruthless murderer and helpless victim, the most loving mother and the most powerful woman of the Roman empire, using sex, motherhood, manipulation, and violence to get her way, and single-minded in her pursuit of power for herself and her son, Nero.

This book follows Agrippina as a daughter, born in Cologne, to the expected heir to Augustus’s throne; as a sister to Caligula who raped his sisters and showered them with honors until they attempted rebellion against him and were exiled; as a seductive niece and then wife to Claudius who gave her access to near unlimited power; and then as a mother to Nero―who adored her until he had  her assassinated.

Through senatorial political intrigue, assassination attempts, and exile to a small island, to the heights of imperial power, thrones, and golden cloaks and games and adoration, Agrippina scaled the absolute limits of female power in Rome. Her biography is also the story of the first Roman imperial family―the Julio-Claudians―and of the glory and corruption of the empire itself.

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Agrippina: The Most Extraordinary Woman in the Roman World gives readers something that is hard to find: a biography of a Roman woman.  Agrippina: sister of Caligula, wife of Claudius, mother of Nero.  She was loved and reviled, praised and curse- both today and during her lifetime. Agrippina created new roles for imperial women, and pushed (or outright broke) the accepted role of women in Roman life.

 Emma Southon looks at Agrippina's life as it can be pieced together from ancient sources, but she also gives readers perfect examples of why those sources can't necessarily be trusted.  She immerses the reader in the culture of the Roman world so we can see how our modern views on women, politics, and life in general were not those of Tacitus, Seutonius, and the histories they wrote.That True History can't always be discovered and sometimes the historian has to make their best assumptions- but should also be willing to admit that they are assumptions.

It is clear that Southon is an expert in all things Aggripina and ancient Rome and has done her research.  But her writing style isn't designed to overwhelm the reader with how much she knows or how amazingly academic she is.  Instead, Southon writes as if she is a friend trying to describe Agrippina's life to you over a pint at the local pub.  She is in full casual, brilliant,  story-telling mode; she shreds her original sources for their clear prejudices and unreliability; and presents it all with sparkling English humor, wit, and occasional vulgarity that left me laughing at many of her opinions and insights.  Southon reconstructs Agrippina's life through ancient sources, gives her views on what was mostly likely to happen when Agrippina wasn't being written about, and does a wonderful job of explaining why she thinks that way while reminding the reader when something is only herl speculation or opinion.     

If you only read one book in your life on Agrippina, or the Roman Empire as a whole, it needs to be Emma Southon's Agrippina: The Most Extraordinary Woman in the Roman World. It is a book for people who love history and are looking for a more feminist light to be shone on ancient sources, for those who love history and want to celebrate powerful women the Romans tried to hide in the shadows.  It is also a book for people who think they don't like history and that history is boring.  Just a few pages into Agrippina will convert even the most hardened "history isn't for me" believers. 

I received an ARC of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review