As a Pompeii enthusiast, this book has been on my to-read list for a little while. I haven’t seen too many heroines in Pompeii-themed literature (but then I have mostly been reading novels from the 1830s!) and I was excited to see a bold-looking woman on the cover with the tagline fortune favours her. On the book’s Goodreads page is a quote from The Guardian describing it as a “bold, bloody, riotous sapphic romantasy” and I couldn’t have put it better myself.
The protagonist of this story is Gia, a young woman who has lost most of her family and now lives with her mother and works in their struggling taberna. She once dreamt of being a gladiator, and when the chance is given to her she is soon the talk of the town – for better or worse. Before long she catches the eye of Claudia, the daughter of the Emperor, who has designs on being an empress. At sparse intervals we also see a group of Roman goddesses who are hoping to change the course of history…
In my experience, Pompeii literature tends to fall into the genres of pure historical or time-travel. Fantasy is uncommon, and this is the first work I’ve seen to utilise the gods as actual characters. We are no longer constrained by history, and so we have Pompeii’s (fictional) first female gladiator to give us room for a feminist story. Emperor Tiberius is also an invention; Vespasian was emperor in 79 AD (though an Emperor Tiberius did reign from 14 – 37 AD). Claudia’s name may be in reference to Claudia Octavia, who was empress from around 40 – 62 AD). The dates don’t match up, but this is not a strictly historical story and so the author has left plenty of breathing room for the plot and characters to carve a new path – the story is about finding a new destiny, after all.
I started reading this book on the plane home from my first trip to Pompeii (IT WAS AMAZING). This no doubt helped me to visualise the scenes, especially those in the Amphitheatre, but I could also tell that much work had gone into describing the space and breathing life into the ruins. I enjoyed the detail of Vesuvius being shrouded in clouds one day, as that was exactly what I saw myself from the forum! The story may deviate from established history but the setting is firmly grounded in Pompeii, which is extra fun if you know a bit about the place before reading.
I admit that the cover did mislead me into thinking this was a YA story, but it is definitely adult and there are obvious sexual themes as Gia slowly realises that she is attracted to women. Her relationship with Claudia is a sort of one-sided enemies-to-lovers affair and it’s done really well; I like how they come from different spheres of society but both are struggling to survive in a male-dominated world.
This was a great read. It seemed that every character had a secret to hide, and there were plenty of twists and turns along the way. The eruption of Vesuvius was done well, and I enjoyed the scene of the amphitheatre flooding – which also happened to great dramatic effect in the 2014 Pompeii movie. The sequel takes place in an alternate Ancient Rome, and I will be sad to leave this vividly-drawn Pompeii and its characters, but I look forward to wherever the story takes us next. The POV character switches to Claudia for the other half of this duology, which is a great way to keep things interesting.
There are not many Pompeii novels with LGBTQ+ characters aside from a few erotic novellas, but there has been a welcome trend of romances in recent years. Vesuvius by Cass Biehn is the story of two boys, a thief and a temple attendant (and may also contain fantasy elements, though I haven’t read it yet). Promises in Pompeii by Violet Morley follows two women and their love story over twenty years (partly also taking place in Ancient Roman – another book on my to-read list). You can find my Goodreads bookshelf collecting LGBTQ+ Pompeii fiction here.