Pompeii city on fire by T.L. Higley - REVIEWED

About the Book: (from the publisher)

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!!

About the Author:

T.L. Higley holds a degree in English Literature and has written three previous novels and more than fifty drama productions for church ministry. She is especially passionate about "breaking down emotional and philosophical barriers that people have put up between themselves and Christ."

To celebrate the release of Guardian of the Flame, T. L. Higley is giving away a framed picture of the Lighthouse at Alexandria when you click here to join her mailing list!