BOOK REVIEW: Shadows in the Ashes by Christina Courtenay (BLOG TOUR)

MY REVIEW

I have only recently started reading dual time/timeslip novels and now enjoy them more and more.

Shadows in the Ashes caught my eye because of of the Pompeii setting - a place that has fascinated me since I was in primary school and a place I was finally lucky enough to visit in 2023.

Shadows in the Ashes brings Pompeii alive as we follow the almost parallel lives of our heroines Caterina (present day) and Aemilia (AD 79) as they fight to escape their controlling, abusive partners as well as having a young child to love and protect. The tension and danger, hardship and heartbreak is softened by the appearances of the women's exposure to better, stronger men in the form of research scientist, Connor and gladiator, Raedwald.

A fabulous, high stakes romantic journey through time which I thoroughly recommend!

Shadows In The Ashes

Brimming with romance, adventure and vivid historical detail, Christina Courtenay's gripping dual-time novel travels from the present day to the fires of ancient Pompeii.

The sunlight caught her gold bracelet, sending a flash that almost blinded her.

She closed her eyes, but jumped when the earth started shaking and there was an almighty boom behind her.

Present Day
Finally escaping an abusive marriage, Caterina Rossi takes her three-year-old daughter and flees to Italy. There she's drawn to research scientist Connor, who needs her translation help for his work on volcanology. Together they visit the ruins of Pompeii and, standing where Mount Vesuvius unleashed its fire on the city centuries before, Cat begins to see startling visions. Visions that appear to come from the antique bracelet handed down through her family's generations...

AD 79
Sold by his half-brother and enslaved as a gladiator in Roman Pompeii, Raedwald dreams only of surviving each fight, making the coin needed to return to his homeland and taking his revenge. That is, until he is hired to guard beautiful Aemilia. As their forbidden love grows, Raedwald's dreams shift like the ever more violent tremors of the earth beneath his feet.

The present starts eerily to mirror the past as Cat must fight to protect her safety, and to forge a new path from the ashes of her old life...