Today for #HistFicThursdays, I am delighted to once again be teaming up with The Coffee Pot Book Club , this time to share an excerpt from SP Somtow 's fantastic new book Nero and Sporus ! First of all, let's meet the book... Finally available in one volume! The decadence of Imperial Rome comes to life in S.P. Somtow's Literary Titan Award-winning novel about one of ancient history's wildest characters. The historian Suetonius tells us that the Emperor Nero emasculated and married his slave Sporus, the spitting image of murdered Empress Poppaea. But history has more tidbits about Sporus, who went from "puer delicatus" to Empress to one Emperor and concubine to another, and ended up being sentenced to play the Earth-Goddess in the arena. Nero and Sporus is available on #KindleUnlimited via this link . And here's an excerpt to whet your appetite: I suppose we were anxious to see who the surprise competitor would be, but no one was as surprise...
Christmas is coming, it's only four days away! For someone who loves Christmas so much, the festival and celebration of Christmas does not feature in as many of my books as I would have expected. All the same, I've drawn together a couple of snippets concerning Christmas from various stories I've written, and I present them to you now as my #HistFicThursdays offering (you can also find a couple from Beneath Black Clouds and White here, as well as last year's offerings here).
Philip was almost grateful of the laborious journey, as it numbed his body to the pains which lay ahead. Instead, he concentrated all his thoughts on the imminent arrival of Advent. It had always been his favourite season of the church’s year. The coming of peace. And he was ready for peace.
~ from The Year We Lived
The presents were distributed by Hamish and Roger and all those present had a gift matched perfectly to their recipient. The day continued with games and carols, for which Catherine accompanied them on the piano, drawing smiles from Hamish and Imogen who shared a joke with her husband. Henry stood in the doorway at the back and smiled across at the gathered family who sang with great enthusiasm if not always great pitch. Toby walked over to him and his father smiled down.
“I have tried, with all my new family,” Toby began,“to find anyone who has a bad word to say about you. But no one has anything but the greatest respect for you. Do you know how hard it is to be the son of such a man?”
“If they have no bad word to say, Toby, it is only that they do not know me.”
“Do not say that, Father. I realised today, you see, that I should stop being so selfish. I was thinking only of you in relation to me. I am so proud of you, Father, and if I can do even half of what you have done for other people I shall be amongst the best of men.”
~ from To Reason Why
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