In the sticky summer heat unruly desires stir the blood ...For Catullus, the brilliantly witty and outrageous young poet, and Clodia, his older, married lover, a borrowed villa in Rome is a secret, illicit meeting-place. When they are apart, Catullus burns with desire for 'his girl', while Clodia goes her own way among his rivals. Other passions simmer in the heat: the streets threaten to erupt in political violence, hearts sour and contemplate murder, and love and hate are dangerously entwined. Catullus' jealousy grows as toxic as hellebore or hemlock. Poisoning is a Roman art, and there is poison everywhere ...
Author Biography
Helen Dunmore has published ten novels with Penguin: Zennor in Darkness, which won the McKitterick Prize; Burning Bright; A Spell of Winter, which won the Orange Prize; Talking to the Dead; Your Blue-Eyed Boy; With Your Crooked Heart; The Siege, which was shortlisted for the 2001 Whitbread Novel of the Year Award and for the Orange Prize for Fiction 2002; Mourning Ruby; House of Orphans and Counting the Stars. She is also a poet, children's novelist and short-story writer.
