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The Confessions of Young Nero

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1 of 1 copy available
1 of 1 copy available
The New York Times bestselling and legendary author of Helen of Troy and Elizabeth I now turns her gaze on Emperor Nero, one of the most notorious and misunderstood figures in history.
Built on the backs of those who fell before it, Julius Caesar’s imperial dynasty is only as strong as the next person who seeks to control it. In the Roman Empire no one is safe from the sting of betrayal: man, woman—or child.
 
As a boy, Nero’s royal heritage becomes a threat to his very life, first when the mad emperor Caligula tries to drown him, then when his great aunt attempts to secure her own son’s inheritance. Faced with shocking acts of treachery, young Nero is dealt a harsh lesson: it is better to be cruel than dead.
 
While Nero idealizes the artistic and athletic principles of Greece, his very survival rests on his ability to navigate the sea of vipers that is Rome. The most lethal of all is his own mother, a cold-blooded woman whose singular goal is to control the empire. With cunning and poison, the obstacles fall one by one. But as Agrippina’s machinations earn her son a title he is both tempted and terrified to assume, Nero’s determination to escape her thrall will shape him into the man he was fated to become—an Emperor who became legendary.
 
With impeccable research and captivating prose, The Confessions of Young Nero is the story of a boy’s ruthless ascension to the throne. Detailing his journey from innocent youth to infamous ruler, it is an epic tale of the lengths to which man will go in the ultimate quest for power and survival.
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    • Kirkus

      January 1, 2017
      The first in a pair of novels devoted to Roman Emperor Nero--the one blamed for fiddling while Rome burned--offers a new take on an age-old reputation.Insane, cruel, a sex fiend? That's not the Nero who narrates George's (Elizabeth I, 2011, etc.) latest historical epic. This lonely child, attracted to music, poetry, and sports and propelled to the forefront of history when his scruple-free mother, Agrippina, returns from exile, scarcely has clean hands, but neither is he mad, bad, and dangerous to know. It's Agrippina who sets her son on the path to power, employing Locusta, a poisoner, to help clear the way to the imperial throne. Having disposed of her husband, Agrippina positions herself to marry her uncle, Emperor Claudius. Then, once Nero has reached age 16, old enough to take power, it's Claudius' turn for the poisoned platter. Indeed, it's the women around Nero who seem to introduce much of the danger, passion, and excitement to this version of events. Admittedly, Nero uses Locusta too, to rid himself of a threat, and is eventually driven to arrange the murder of overbearing Agrippina, yet he's muted rather than megalomaniacal and haunted by the matricide. Other notable female figures include Octavia, his first wife, ignored, then divorced; Acte, the freed slave Nero wants to marry but who spurns him; Boudicca, the British queen who leads an uprising that nearly defeats the Roman army; and Poppaea, already married to a friend of Nero's but who will become the emperor's wife in due course. On its whistle-stop tour through the years, George's revisionist novel makes hefty use of its research, yet the emperor himself, shorn of his bad-boy reputation, emerges as oddly pallid, neither charismatic nor catastrophic. By reconfiguring one of history's most notorious villains as "a man of integrity, ingenuity, and generosity," this workmanlike saga redeems Nero while simultaneously rendering him rather less fascinating.

      COPYRIGHT(2017) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

    • Library Journal

      November 15, 2016

      Best-selling historical novelist George moves from British kings and queens (Elizabeth I; The Autobiography of Henry VIII) to ancient Rome in this fictionalized biography of one of its most notorious emperors. Adopted by the emperor Claudius and related to Marc Antony, Augustus, and Caligula, Nero was crowned emperor at the age of 16. Nero is remembered, most infamously, for the excesses and ruthlessness of his reign. In her novel, George details a more balanced view of his life: a love of music and poetry, romantic attachments, grief over the loss of a child, and his sense of duty. However, drama still rules in the ancient world. The psychological warfare of elite Roman families, constant political scheming, and assassination plots move the story line rapidly forward from the first chapter in which Caligula attempts to drown young Nero to the final one in which Nero and his beloved second wife watch Rome burn. Highly acclaimed for the detail and personality she gives to epic subjects, George's heavily researched novel flows dynamically among multiple points of view. VERDICT Historical fiction devotees and anyone who enjoys the entertainment of a grandly dysfunctional family will quickly devour this first volume of a duology and eagerly await its sequel.--Catherine Lantz, Univ. of Illinois at Chicago Lib.

      Copyright 2016 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

    • Booklist

      February 1, 2017
      Does he fiddle while Rome burns? No, although he loves performing music. What about the extravagances, dissipation, and political murders? Let's just say there are extenuating circumstances. Once again demonstrating mastery of the epic fictional autobiography, George (Elizabeth I, 2011) chronicles the rise of Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus, Emperor Caligula's nephew, from sensitive boy to imperial heir to, finally, near-omnipotent ruler as Emperor Nero. It's a coming-of-age story like no other, and George's Nero details, not without many twinges of guilt along the way, the rapid shifts in circumstance that transform his character. He fears becoming like his mother, the ambitious, amoral Agrippina, but must play her game to survive. An athlete and admirer of Greek culture, Nero is a consummate showman, and his entertaining narrative exemplifies this. With conviction and flair, George looks past two millennia of bad press about Nero to reveal an intelligent man of justice and religious tolerance who takes refuge in artistic expression. This is the first of two novels charting his dangerous, outrageous life in first-century Rome; the second will be eagerly awaited.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2017, American Library Association.)

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