CITY OF RUINS

As her city falls apart one woman speaks out

A tremor shakes the ancient city. Fear grips the people as omens multiply. Yet nightly feasting continues at the Palace, and at the Temple the gods' favour is bought as it always has been _ with gold and sacrifices.

Only the Augur, a fearless, ageless prophetess, can see what's coming. Around her an unlikely resistance gathers: Saba and Aemilia, her two young acolytes, stolen from distant homelands; Myloxenes, fleeing his savage father; and pain-wracked Antonus, raising a family far from the depravity of the Palace he once called home.

City of Ruins is a thrilling feat of literary imagination. The setting is ancient; its conflicts, fears and hopes are our own.