{"id":3492,"date":"2019-12-09T07:12:24","date_gmt":"2019-12-09T15:12:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/?p=3492"},"modified":"2019-12-09T07:14:31","modified_gmt":"2019-12-09T15:14:31","slug":"tasha-alexander-in-the-shadow-of-vesuvius","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/tasha-alexander-in-the-shadow-of-vesuvius\/","title":{"rendered":"Tasha Alexander: In the Shadow of Vesuvius"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

This novel is available January 7, 2020.\u00a0 You can pre-order it on this website.<\/em><\/p>\n

There\u2019s always a moment in a Tasha Alexander book where I give a little yip of joy. \u00a0Be it a ghost ballerina or a lovingly described Worth dress (there\u2019s a beauty in this book), in this outing, it was the body hidden in plain sight amongst all the others in Pompeii.\u00a0 When a fresher corpse is noticed by Lady Emily and her husband as having the wrong sideburns and the discovery was made, I could not have been happier.<\/p>\n

Corpses and Worth dresses aside, I think this was one of the more intellectual of Alexander\u2019s novels.\u00a0 The author, like her heroine, is a true lover of history, and Lady Emily\u2019s preference is the ancient world.\u00a0 Pompeii could not be a more perfect backdrop for her sleuthing.\u00a0 The clues scattered through the novel make a reference to history and provide warnings Emily and Colin mostly choose to ignore.<\/p>\n

Adding to the drama is the arrival of a certain Katherina Von Lange, who seems far too young\u2026and who turns out, in fact, to be Colin\u2019s daughter, turning up out of nowhere and making things awkward and tense for most of the characters in the novel.\u00a0 Lady Emily, despite Kat\u2019s attempts to ignore and belittle her, remains above the fray and attempts to support her husband as he suddenly morphs into an overanxious parent.<\/p>\n

The mystery part of the story is an excellent traditional mystery of the sort Alexander is expert at creating.\u00a0 She uses all the traditional tropes \u2013 red herrings, clues, closed suspect pool \u2013 to her great advantage as she spins a tale that takes Emily, Colin and Kat all over Pompeii.\u00a0 As readers we get to learn a bit, but the history never overwhelms the story.\u00a0 It\u2019s instead integral to the story.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s also a parallel story set in Pompeii which if course, as readers, we know will end tragically.\u00a0 It\u2019s the story of slave girl Kassandra, a budding poet, who deceives her best friend (and mistress) by sharing her poetry with her best friend\u2019s eventual husband.\u00a0 The two meet in secret as Kassandra pens scroll after scroll of an epic poem, shared only with her friend\u2019s deceptive husband.<\/p>\n

Alexander has all the necessary tools in her mystery writer\u2019s toolbox that make for an exceptional read.\u00a0 She has a gorgeous and fascinating setting; she has characters that are beloved by readers but who are challenged in different ways in each novel, as they are in this one, by the arrival of Kat; and she tells a great story.\u00a0 The highest complement I can give (almost) is that I didn\u2019t figure out the ending.\u00a0 I read so many mysteries I can\u2019t help a mental round of applause when this is the case.\u00a0 It\u2019s a golden age skill, still kept vitally in play by the talented Alexander.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This novel is available January 7, 2020.\u00a0 You can pre-order it on this website. There\u2019s always a moment in a Tasha Alexander book where I give a little yip of joy. \u00a0Be it a ghost ballerina or a lovingly described Worth dress (there\u2019s a beauty in this book), in this outing, it was the body … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[10,278,277,100,276,275],"class_list":["post-3492","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews","tag-historical","tag-lady-emily","tag-lost-daughters","tag-minotaur-books","tag-pompeii","tag-tasha-alexander"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3492","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3492"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3492\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3496,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3492\/revisions\/3496"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3492"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3492"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3492"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}