Two more

Lisa Henry, He is Worthy. Rome, 68AD, and the Emperor Nero is busy running the place into the ground with state-sanctioned murder and sexual decadence. Senna, a friend of Nero’s (one of the few he hasn’t turned against) has the job of telling patricians when they’ve lost Nero’s favour and need to kill themselves; he is sickened by what Nero has become, and recruits one of Nero’s new sex slaves, Aenor (a Bructeri trader) to kill Nero for him.

( Lisa Henry, He is Worthy. )

Heidi Cullinan and Marie Sexton, Second Hand. This was just the right amount of sweet and fuzzy, much to my surprise (I read about half of it at the dog park, which was also the ideal setting). I had wondered whether combining these two authors would skew more towards explicit sex or total sap (Heidi Cullinan’s extremes), but instead it’s worked rather well, without my feeling too trapped by the small town setting (more of a Marie Sexton thing).

( Heidi Cullinan and Marie Sexton, Second Hand. )