The Wedding Shroud, by Elisabeth Storrs

This novel is a romantic tale of ancient Romans and Etruscans, and if you something fresh, engaging, sensual, and a real page turner, you’ll love The Wedding Shroud. I plowed right through this book, unable to put it down because Storrs does a fantastic job of creating three-dimensional characters and addicting plots.

Caecilia, the Roman heroine, is carefully drawn and a complex woman. She’s not a young, unsophisticated woman waiting for rescue, but an intelligent and atypical half aristocrat bartered matrimonially between Rome and one of its most powerful enemies. She fits in nowhere in her birthplace and is powerless.

Carefully researched for over fifteen years, Roman and Etruscan daily life, rituals, war, are stunningly woven into Caecilia’s story, without being stuffed full of pages of detail.

I literally could not put this book down, and read through the night until finished. Of course, I wanted more. A lot more. Now I’m on to The Golden Dice, the sequel.