I went a bit overboard buying books at today's Phoenix Association (animal rescue) Great Book Fair fund-raiser and bought 30 books at only one euro each. They aren't all for me, but this one is for my TBR shelves.

I was really disappointed in this book. I've enjoyed all the other Helen Dunmore books I've read, but not this one. I found it repetitive, I really didn't need to hear how much Catallus loved and hated Clodia time after time, in the end nothing much really happened except for the death of a sparrow and a rich man and the hard, beaten lives of slaves. I disliked the characters, was bored by the spoiled lives of the rich and famous and the tedious love scenes. Yes, the writing is beautiful, but the story is not.