Best known for her mysteries featuring Marcus Didius Falco, internationally bestselling author Lindsey Davis also possesses extraordinary skills as a historian. Now, in a sweeping, emotionally intense tale, she unravels an ancient mystery concerning a real Roman emperor, a woman who truly lived, and a defiant love...

THE COURSE OF HONOR

For Romans, the career path to become a senator-"The Course of Honor"-is often strewn with betrayal and murder. But it has one unbreakable rule: A Roman senator cannot marry a slave, even a freed one. Caenis, a slave in the household of the mother of the Emperor, possesses both intelligence and charisma. The plain-speaking soldier Vespasian, who meets this young girl cooking in the imperial palace, soon gives her both his appetites and his soul. Yet Vespasian is destined for the imperial throne. And in a city of a thousand dark alleys and sybaritic feasts where rivals are dispatched with poison, Caenis is forbidden fruit, dangerous to know, and fatal to pursue...unless two lovers can somehow create a daring course of honor of their own.