The setting was well done, the characters believable, but overall just too mundane to make a compelling tale. In between, there's a lot of 'yadda yadda.' There was also a diplomatic issue involving a kingdom at the far border of the empire. A few events defined their reign, a plague and an uprising. Action is mostly passive, and the result was a ponderous story that was as slow to read as the action in the book. This book is more like a biography than anything. Soon after hooking hooking up with Simonis (who, after marriage, changes her name to Callidora to help break the connection with her whorish past), Leontines dies, and they become Emperor and Empress. Maxentius is the adopted son of Leontines, a smart boy who contrives to position his adoptive father as successor to the dying emperor. After a perilous journey back to Visant, she catches the eye of young Maxentius, whose tale is told in parallel.

After running off with a john who was appointed governor of a remote province, she gets knocked up and is summarily cast aside. Her mother immediately takes up with her father's replacement, Simona becomes a street urchin who eventually is recruited to be a courtesan and spy. When her father takes ill and dies, the wife and two daughters left behind are left to fend for themselves in a world not kind to single women and girls. (the location of all manner of public entertainment, including animal fights and chariot races). Simona is the daughter of a bear keeper recently appointed to the hippodrome in the capital city of Visant. This review was written for LibraryThing Early Reviewers.This novel is loosely based on the Byzantine emperor Justinian and his wife, Theordora.

Empress by Alma Alexander