This story is about a historian who travels back in time to ancient Pompeii, where she is immediately captured and sold into slavery. Because she can read and write, she becomes valuable to her household. Though she possesses the means to return to her own time, she lingers because she falls in love with her master.

While this was an enjoyable story, I have to admit the main character, Miranda, read like a Mary Sue. That is, she seemed to possess superhuman abilities at times ~ indefatigable, personable beyond belief, always in the right place at the right time. Though Latin is a dead language in our time, she has no problem not only speaking and reading it but also understanding the people she meets, despite the fact that they would've spoken dialects she may not have known. Everyone loved her and this was a cute little adventure she was on in her quest to find "true love."

However, as a reader I have issues with the thought that a slave of any stature can find "true love" with the master who owns them. Too many variables exist in such a relationship to make me believe love can be consensual between unequal individuals. While perhaps Miranda did feel love toward her master Tullius (she was, after all, born in our time and didn't consider herself anyone's slave), he would've seen her as merely a possession and the story wasn't strong enough to support the argument that he loved her any more than he did anything else he owned.

I did like the nice twist with Demetrius' character and why he went to the lengths he did for Tullius, but that wasn't the focus of the story so it mattered little in the grand scheme of things. I also enjoyed a look at life in Pompeii (this story takes place 17 years before the infamous eruption of Mount Vesuvius, though there are foreshadowing occurrences which hint at what's coming). This was innovative, as most stories I've read which are set in Pompeii revolve around the explosion and little else.

The historical aspects of the story were well researched and presented in a way that doesn't hinder the characters or the plot. I just wish Miranda was a little more ... average, I guess would be the best word to use. Still, this is a quick read I think most readers would enjoy.

This book is poorly written so darn much fun.

My favorite genre is Historical Fiction, particularly historical fiction involving time-travel. Copious repetition and some typographical errors notwithstanding, I found the storyline very absorbing. If you can get over the former (which I made myself do), it's an enjoyable read.

Very well done

I never buy e-books I always buy an actual book. I'm very glad I bought this as an e-book. I hope the author writes more books like this is very well done and very well edited. It's nice to read a book without a bunch of grammatical and spelling errors.

Good - a Greek/Roman Cinderella story.....

I wanted to read the book since I read everything I can get my hands on that has to do with Pompeii. I enjoyed her storytelling a lot and found that she did a lot of research to make the read true to fact. However, I was bothered by the repeating of information. It was almost like the author had forgotten that she had already told us this certain thing or maybe didn't read her manuscript over before continuing on with the story. I found myself wondering how this could happen.
Overall, it was a nice little story and I enjoyed it.

3.5 rating

This story was actually pretty cute. It's about a woman named Miranda who gets to go back in time to 20 years before the volcano Vesuvius erupts in Pompeii. It didn't expand much on the technology of "how" she got back, which I think would of been good to add in, but it focused more on her story there. She becomes a slave to Marcus Tullius, and later they fall in love. It was a pretty cute love story. It was a unique time travel story!

cross between Scifi and history fiction - OK read

Pretty cute premise and I assume she knows her stuff, but the atrocious prose killed it. I don't know that I've read a worse narrative, and this in a DTB book that cost money, not a freebie ebook.

I've always been fascinated with Mt Vesuvius and it's turbulent history of erruptions. Read lots of stuff on Pompeii and Herculaenum and the current excavations. Hope to visit there next year while we're in Europe and culminate a childhood dream. Can't wait to see all the mosaics. Roman, Italian, geology.

62

The brilliant ending and the wit of Julia Felix got this book a good review. A good, if long-winded story.