But here, I’ll sketch out the plot of “Faro’s Daughter” and people who’ve read this one can draw their own conclusions.

In “Faro's Daughter” the heroine was orphaned and went to live with her flighty aunt. The flighty aunt, in an attempt to get out of debt, bought a huge house and turned it into a gaming hell for the fashionable young gentlemen of London. Every night they open their doors and the heroine presides over the gambling and the entertainment. Bills are still piling up though, because the aunt is extravagant and has no head for money. The mortgage on the aunt's house is held by an unscrupulous gentleman who is hoping to use the threat of foreclosure to make the heroine his mistress. It should also be noted that the heroine is virginal and pure but has still managed to get the reputation of being a loose woman of low morals for acting as hostess at her aunt's “card parties”.

The hero gets pulled in when his young cousin falls for the heroine. The young cousin tells his mother he means to marry her. The mother, our hero's aunt, calls the hero in to extract his young cousin from the heroine's “clutches.” To pay the heroine off if he has to, if that will get rid of her.

The heroine, of course, has no intention of marrying the inexperienced young cousin- even if he is rich and all his money could solve her family's problems. She has every intention of telling the hero this to reassure him but he treats her so badly, like a loose woman, in fact, that she decides to teach him a lesson by pretending to be exactly what he thinks she is- a coarse, money-grubbing harpy. This, of course, leads to many misunderstandings and scuffles on their path to true love.

Does it sound familiar?

Other things: the hero challenges the heroine to a game of cards for very high stakes. He lets her win at first and then bleeds her for an obscene amount of money to “teach her a lesson”. She agrees to is high stakes even knowing they can’t afford it. The heroine has a selfish younger brother in the army who doesn't appreciate her and needs her to come up with the money to buy his expensive commission. There's a phaeton race with the hero. The hero eventually wins the mortgage off the evil suitor on a wager.

I really liked Gladiator's Honor and her other books sound interesting too. This book just irked me, though. It was far too similar to me to just be a coincidence and she doesn't acknowledge Georgette Heyer anywhere in the book, not the dedication or the author's note. It just seemed inappropriate to me and it's been bugging me for awhile. Anyway, sorry for the rant.

Thanks,
Moth

All the best, Michelle

Many thanks for the review.
I can confirm that the title and the cover are decided at editorial level. The author has little to do with it. With the cover, I asked if I should fill out an art fact sheet when I turned in the revisions and was told that it had already been commissioned. Luckily my editor spent a great deal of time looking at photos of Baia (the modern name ofr Baiae).

Let me see if I can answer a few questions.
1.With Silvana’s name (as the poster above implied), it is not strictly accurate but I am using Cattalus and to a certain extent Circero as a guide. Silvana is her pet name and would not appear on any official document. it is why I put the name before her family name. If it had been after, that would have implied that it would go on an official document which clearly it wouldn’t. Indeed Fortis’ aunt only calls her Junia.
Cattalus called his mistress Cynthia in his poetry. What did he call her in real life? Cynthia or Clodia. There were three sisters of that family in that period with very strong personalities. I would guess that everyone knew which one he was speaking of. Circero called the same woman *Ox-eyes*.
A small conceit, but having read the gravestones, as well as the Vindolanda letters, I refuse to believe that society who would name female slaves and pets would only refer to their wives and sisters in private conversation as simply Woman of xyz family. Hopefully you can tell that I did think long and hard about it before I did it that way.
It also makes for easier reading. Lindsey Davies also does this in her Falco series btw. And the main thing for me is to make the period accessible. Basically I am going for an authentic feel, rather than a 100% accuracy.

2. 12 lines is like backgammon, probably close to the variation called acey -duecy. Latrunculi is basically Roman chess. The site for Roman board games appears to have vanished.

3. The dancing I asume was like Italian or Greek folk dancing. The tantarella for example. It can get pretty wild. The grape vine step seems to appear often in that sort of dancing and it is sort of what I envisioned.

4. I suspect I spin rather worse than Silvana. I can spin a bit but once my concentration goes, the spindle goes bouncing across the floor!

5. I have recipes for fish sauce, but haven’t made it. Thai fish sauce is probably pretty close to the real thing. Or salted anchovies which are used in some Italian dishes…

6 Growing ancient wines is difficult, partly because there are so many different varietals and the crosses that have happen over the years. And graps grown on prephyloxora vines taste differnt. Some of the Spanish wines from Jumia (?) region are still the old varieties. It is a heavier wine and I can see why people used to cut it with water.

I hope this all helps.

Many thanks again.

All the best,
Michelle

That is a horrid title though.

Also Fortis isn’t — *slaps my hand and pulls out some real work to do*