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The end is coming. The gods are watching. This thrilling historical fantasy set in the days before Mount Vesuvius destroys Pompeii is a meet cute with an explosive fallout.
Clever thief Felix slips from city to city to survive the present and escape a past he can't remember. When Felix steals a divine artifact—Mercury's helmet—from a temple in Pompeii, pieces of his forgotten past begin to surface.
Loren, an ambitious temple attendant, has seen Felix in his apocalyptic nightmares for years. The last thing Loren expects is for his dream to stumble headfirst through his temple doors, moments after an earthquake rocks the city.
When Felix shows Loren the helmet, Loren sees the world coming to an end. He knows they have mere days to uncover Felix's ties to the relic and to Loren's visions if they have any hope of saving the city. But Ancient Rome is ruled by bloody politics and unstoppable destinies, and now that Loren and Felix are intertwined, their lives aren't all they risk losing. When all has turned to ash and rubble, the boys will have to piece together their fates to make it out of a burning city alive.
An exploration of ambition and class, autonomy and religion, survival and love, Vesuvius combines the romantic angst of They Both Die at the End and the blended magic and history of The Song of Achilles to show readers that it is never too late to change your fate—or change the world.
"Debut author Biehn weaves political intrigue into impressively researched Roman history and mythology." —Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"A heartfelt and absorbing historical adventure with light fantasy elements." —Kirkus Reviews
"Roman mythological connections are a draw for the Riordan crowd, as are the high stakes, modern-feeling characters, queer romance, and witty banter." —Booklist
This information about Vesuvius was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Cass Biehn (they/them) writes messy queer characters in messier situations, usually with religious politics and always with angsty kissing. They hold a Master of Library Science from Aberystwyth University in rainy Wales and currently live in the Utah desert, where they split their time between cosplaying and wrangling their dogs. Learn more about them at cassbiehn.com or @cassbeewrites on Twitter and Instagram.
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