Authors: Judith Tarr and Harry Turtledove
Publisher: Tor Fantasy
Year: 1999
# of pages: 664
Date read: 4/9/2012
Rating: 4*/5 = great
Description:
"Nicole Gunther-Perrin is a modern young professional, proud of her legal skills but weary of the daily grind, of childcare, and of sexist coworkers and her deadbeat ex-husband. Then after one exceptionally awful day, she awakens to find herself in a different life, that of a widowed tavernkeeper on the Roman frontier around A.D. 170.
Delighted at first, she quickly begins to realize that her new world is as complicated as her old one. Violence, dirt, and pain are everywhere; slavery is commonplace, gladiators kill for sport, and drunkenness is taken for granted. Yet, somehow, people manage to face life everyday with humor and goodwill.
No quitter, Nicole manages to adapt, despite endless worry about the fate of her children "back" in the twentieth century. Then plague sweeps through Carnuntum, followed by brutal war. Amidst pain and loss on a level she had never imagined, Nicole must find reserves of the sort of strength she had never known." -- from the back cover
My thoughts:
I liked this book about a modern woman finding herself in a different time, but not because of the time travel. Rather, I liked the way Nicole has to confront her assumptions and how she finds the strength she needs in herself.
