Pompeii by T.L. Higley - REVIEW AND GIVE AWAY!!!

This week, the Christian Fiction Blog Alliance is introducing Pompeii B&H Books (June 1, 2011) by T.L. Higley



ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

A fiction aficionado since grade school, T.L. Higley, author of Pompeii: City on Fire (B&H Publishing House, June 2011) started her first novel at the age of eight.



Now the author of nine historical fiction novels, including the popular Seven Wonders series, Higley isn’t just transporting readers: She’s transporting herself, too.



“My Iifelong interest in history and mythology has taken me to Italy, Greece, Egypt, Rome, Turkey, Jordan and Israel, where I’ve gotten to study those ancient cultures in rich detail,” says Higley. “It’s my desire to shine the light of the gospel into the cultures of the past, and I figure what better way to do that than to visit the cultures themselves?”



In addition to her accomplished novelist career, Higley is a business entrepreneur and a mother. In fact, for Pompeii, she brought her daughter along with her to Italy for the research trip.



“We gave it to her as a graduation present, not only because Italy is terrific, but because I believe in exposing children to global cultures,” says Higley, who became a student herself again this year. She’s now a graduate student at American Public University, earning her master’s degree in Ancient and Classical Studies.



When Higley isn’t traveling on research trips, writing her novels, or studying for class, she operates four online retail companies, including KoolStuff4Kids.com – a family-run business that began as a way for her oldest daughter to make some extra money for camp. Today, it is a go-to site for parents, children and teachers all over the country, looking for beads and other kid-friendly craft supplies.



Higley lives with her husband and her three other children (aforementioned daughter now in college) just outside Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.



ABOUT THE BOOK

Pompeii, a city that's many things to many people. For Cato, it's the perfect escape from a failed political career in Rome. A place to start again, become a winemaker. But when a corrupt politician wrongfully jails Cato's sister, he must oust the man from power to save her.



For Ariella, Pompeii is a means to an end. As a young Jew, she escaped the fall of Jerusalem only to endure slavery to a cruel Roman general. She ends up in Pompeii, disguised as a young man and sold into a gladiator troupe. Her anger fuels her to fight well, hoping to win the arena crowds and reveal her gender at the perfect time. Perhaps then she will win true freedom.


But evil creeps through the streets of Pompeii. Political corruption, religious persecution, and family peril threaten to destroy Ariella and Cato, who are thrown together in the battle to survive. As Vesuvius churns with deadly intent, the two must bridge their differences to save the lives of those they love, before the fiery ash buries Pompeii, leaving the city lost to the world.


My Thoughts:
"Portia and Ariella. Two women with secrets. Two women in trouble." (p.175)

Quitrus Portius Cato is torn between the trouble of these two women. So very different...yet so in need of the love and protection of Someone greater than themselves. Cato and his family have come to Pompeii to start a thriving wine business. Portia has come with her husband to start a family. Ariella has come to escape torture and abuse. What they all find - in the shadow of Mount Vesuvius - fifty years after the death and resurrection of Yehua - is a evil man intent on controlling the people of Pompeii.

Ariella begins the story cleverly - or so it seems - escaping one set of circumstances only to find herself in new circumstances that contain even greater danger. Cato becomes aware of the evil that Nigidius Maius is perpetrating on the city only after his sister Portia suffers unjust imprisonment. These lives live and breathe upon the pages of Higley's book until you can smell the blood and sweat of the arena, taste the wine and food offered in the houses of the privileged, and feel the worshipful hope in the homes of the early Christians. As the lives of Cato's family, Ariella and Maius and his minions begin to intersect, the reader is brought entirely into a past that holds very applicable lessons for today's followers of The Way.

And all the while, there is another, silent, immovable character that is develping and changing in the background. Intent on destruction.

What an INCREDIBLE story!! Readers, you HAVE to read this book!! It is more amazing than Petra!! Higley gets better and better with every installment of wonderful stories, and she can literally make the reader feel as though they are walking the streets of Pompeii! There is danger and intrigue that builds and grows to surround every life in this ancient city, and by the time you reach the end of the story....you are running for you life!!

I can't recommend this highly enough!! WONDERFUL Tracy!! WONDERFUL!!


I have an extra copy of this book to give away!! Leave a comment and your contact information on this post to be entered to win!!

Watch the book trailer:



If you would like to read the Prologue of Pompeii, go HERE.