Welcome to the official website of Roma Amor, my historical novel about Caligula's Rome.
Sweeping you from narrow smoke-grimed streets and tenements to elegant mansions where ambitious men plot murder, Roma Amor is a story about fathers and sons, Romans and barbarians, the dreams of an old republic and the demands of a new Empire.
It's 37 AD, the first year in the reign of Caligula Caesar, and the 25-year-old Princeps has won over the Senate and people of Rome with his humility and generosity. Senator Titus Carinna, who helped bring him to the throne, is among the few who know the fears churning behind Caligula's need to be loved. The support of a loyal friend might steady him, but Titus's older son, groomed for the job, has committed suicide. That leaves only 22-year-old Marcus, who has just returned from the German frontier trailing minor clouds of glory. And a hostage girl.
Marcus believes that family honor requires him to atone for his brother’s treason, which endangered the young Caligula. Why, then, is his brother's spirit not at peace? And when Marcus demands to know the truth, why does Caligula warn him, "The point, O Theseus, is not to learn what waits at the heart of the maze. The point is to escape alive"?
Grounded in years of research, Roma Amor is the first in a planned series that will take you from the beginning of Caligula's reign through his assassination, the accession of his uncle Claudius (of I, Claudius fame), poisonings and conspiracies, and the rise of Nero.