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_vanessa's review against another edition
adventurous
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.0
amandainthelibrary's review against another edition
5.0
Amazing book! I loved this it as much as the first two. I hope there is another book in the works.
haraltr's review against another edition
5.0
katie quinn writes ensemble casts far better than most authors i read. not only are they well rounded, and perhaps awful people, but i like them and i want to read more. i know for most of these characters she's drawing from real material, but a lot of other historical fiction comes across so dry to me. katie quinn's writing is so full of life, this book especially. i never write a genuine review of books on here, but i absolutely 100% adore this series & katie quinn's writing and characterisation
chlojo91's review against another edition
*edit 4/01/14* In light of this not being the final volume (there's a sequel coming this fall)I'm going to clear my rating until I see how it all plays out.
I wanted to love this... but I didn't. Now, that isn't to say it isn't a good book, it is. Kate Quinn is a marvelous writer and her books are not only incredibly well written they are also incredibly well researched. No other authors I have read have been able to write so captivatingly about ancient Rome as Ms. Quinn does. I've been looking forward to this release since I finished Mistress of Rome last year. I loved Mistress of Rome, and I loved Daughters of Rome, but this one fell somewhere between like and meh.
As I've already said the writing was fabulous but the characters *sigh*. Let me start with Vix. I love Vix I love him to pieces, his 'voice" took some getting used to since I believe this is the first time we've had a male voice in a Kate Quinn novel (don't quote me on that) and Vix is just very straighforward and a little bit crude. But once I heard Sabina, Vix's idiosyncracies where nothing compared to how badly I wanted to fling my ereader across the room when it was Sabina's turn for a chapter. No, really, anytime Sabina was talking I wanted to punch her right in her mouth. She was very analytical about things and would look at everything like it was a lesson to be learned, some great knowledge giving quest.
Now my tiny rant should be a testament to how well Ms. Quinn developed Sabina's personality. That's how she was supposed to be but it annoyed me so much I couldn't connect to her. And don't even get me start on Plotina. *headdesk* So I suppose that the main thing I disliked was the female characters in this novel.
Moving on, as with Mistress of Rome I loved the love story in this book.Every time the two characters in the same room my heart started beating triple time. Ms. Quinn certainly enjoyed taking us on a rollercoaster with these two.Spoiler
even though we didn't get the happy ending we got in mistress of rome
All in all I did enjoy it even if it was considerably less than it's sister books. But would still recommend it to fans of Quinn's, fans of Ancient Rome, and fans of romantic historical fiction.
timofeev's review against another edition
2.0
I love Quinn's other books, Daughters of Rome and Mistress of Rome, but this one not so much. I really didn't care for any of the characters but I kept on reading because it was mildly interesting. It seemed like there may be a sequel to this later on and though I didn't like this book I would read the other.
colleenlovestoread's review against another edition
4.0
I reviewed this book for www.luxuryreading.com.
This is my first time reading a Kate Quinn book and I cannot help but wonder what took me so long! Corruption, honor, war, love, loyalty, power…these topics and many more are tackled in this story. You hear the term “action packed” used to describe many books but this is one of the few times I have actually read a book and thought it fit. Tipping the scales at 500 pages it was hard to put down as the excitement and intrigue just kept going, resulting in a cliff hanger ending that left me seething about having to wait to find out what happens next.
The story is told in alternating narratives between four very compelling characters – Sabina, a much loved senator’s daughter with a determination all her own; Vix, the gruff ex-gladiator returning to Rome to conquer the city that nearly killed him as a child; Titus, a young nobleman from a respected family that is honest and practical and longs for nothing more than an uneventful life; and Plotina, the plotting, nasty wife of Emperor Trajan that will stop at nothing to see her protégé, Hadrian, become Emperor after her husband. Each character has a very distinct voice that helps the reader get into their frame of mind, whether that is a wonderful self-deprecating humor (as with Titus) or a delusional fantasy world (as with Plotina). The one thing that seems to unite all of these characters is their individual determination to have the life and future they want, regardless of what others around them have planned.
I am so excited to see where these characters will be going in the next installment. My favorite character by far was Titus and the new romance he begins to develop towards the end of Empress of the Seven Hills has me itching to read more. Kate Quinn is definitely an author I will be keeping an eye on and I am excited to go back and read her previous two novels.
This is my first time reading a Kate Quinn book and I cannot help but wonder what took me so long! Corruption, honor, war, love, loyalty, power…these topics and many more are tackled in this story. You hear the term “action packed” used to describe many books but this is one of the few times I have actually read a book and thought it fit. Tipping the scales at 500 pages it was hard to put down as the excitement and intrigue just kept going, resulting in a cliff hanger ending that left me seething about having to wait to find out what happens next.
The story is told in alternating narratives between four very compelling characters – Sabina, a much loved senator’s daughter with a determination all her own; Vix, the gruff ex-gladiator returning to Rome to conquer the city that nearly killed him as a child; Titus, a young nobleman from a respected family that is honest and practical and longs for nothing more than an uneventful life; and Plotina, the plotting, nasty wife of Emperor Trajan that will stop at nothing to see her protégé, Hadrian, become Emperor after her husband. Each character has a very distinct voice that helps the reader get into their frame of mind, whether that is a wonderful self-deprecating humor (as with Titus) or a delusional fantasy world (as with Plotina). The one thing that seems to unite all of these characters is their individual determination to have the life and future they want, regardless of what others around them have planned.
I am so excited to see where these characters will be going in the next installment. My favorite character by far was Titus and the new romance he begins to develop towards the end of Empress of the Seven Hills has me itching to read more. Kate Quinn is definitely an author I will be keeping an eye on and I am excited to go back and read her previous two novels.
jackiepreston's review against another edition
adventurous
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
lisa_setepenre's review against another edition
2.0
A few years ago, I read and loved Kate Quinn’s first two books, [b:Mistress of Rome|6581303|Mistress of Rome (The Empress of Rome, #1)|Kate Quinn|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1442722370s/6581303.jpg|6774744] and [b:Daughters of Rome|8577314|Daughters of Rome (The Empress of Rome, #2)|Kate Quinn|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1281115123s/8577314.jpg|13446294]. They were everything I wanted in a book: immensely readable, complex characters, amazing villains, solid plots that kept me entertained, authentically historical without feeling stuffy and so on. Given all that, I don’t know why it took me so long to read Empress of Rome.
Now that I have read it, I really wish I’d loved it a lot more than I did, that it lived up to my memories of Mistress of Rome and Daughters of Rome. Because this book was a chore to get through and I ended up liking it very little.
And all for one reason. Well, mostly for one reason. And that reason was Vix.
I get that he was supposed to be a lovable rogue, a ruffian-with-the-heart-of-gold. I get that. But I loathed him. He was too abrasive, too brutal, too much of a womaniser, too much of a man who makes plans for his girlfriend, never tells her, then gets pissed at her for not automatically knowing and bowing to his almighty plan/heart/boner. I would liked this book a thousand times more if he’d been killed off in the first chapters. Unfortunately, he survives, and I’m still meant to like him, as all of the ‘good’/’hero’ characters do, and think he’s an excellent judge of character. It also did not help that his POV sections were written in first-person, often making foreboding statements that felt unnecessary.
Other issues with Empress of Rome included Hadrian’s characterisation. By the third section, it felt like his character had shifted significantly, but inexplicably, for the worst. Without understanding why, it was hard to really accept — although I suspect there was a one-sentence explanation of “he was always like this, he was just hiding it before”. I also didn’t really like how his sexuality was treated, it felt a bit too much like a punchline to a joke.
Plotina’s POV was also a chore to get through — she was flat out unlikeable and meant to be, but she lacked a deliciously evil, faintly ridiculous edge and intrigue that made Quinn’s earlier villains so entertaining.
The plot felt a bit undeveloped and undefined, filled with many divergent threads that don’t really go anywhere. Even the relationship between the two protagonists, Vix and Sabina, didn’t really go anywhere. They’re in love, they have sex, they stop having sex, Vix hates her until he stumbles over her again and then they’re right back at the start of the cycle again. I’m not sure what the brief diversion into the problems of be a Jew in the Roman Empire was about. It’s a serious topic, Quinn hints at a serious debate, but it goes nowhere and just sort of sits there, feeling unnecessary to the story.
The ending was inconclusive, so much so that I have a feeling that Empress of Rome and the next book, [b:Lady of the Eternal City|20486495|Lady of the Eternal City (The Empress of Rome, #4)|Kate Quinn|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1404850357s/20486495.jpg|32737496], are really meant to be the one novel, but the story got too big to be confined in one book.
But really? All of this could have been forgiven if I hadn’t spent most of the novel wishing Hadrian would brutally murder Vix.
Now that I have read it, I really wish I’d loved it a lot more than I did, that it lived up to my memories of Mistress of Rome and Daughters of Rome. Because this book was a chore to get through and I ended up liking it very little.
And all for one reason. Well, mostly for one reason. And that reason was Vix.
I get that he was supposed to be a lovable rogue, a ruffian-with-the-heart-of-gold. I get that. But I loathed him. He was too abrasive, too brutal, too much of a womaniser, too much of a man who makes plans for his girlfriend, never tells her, then gets pissed at her for not automatically knowing and bowing to his almighty plan/heart/boner. I would liked this book a thousand times more if he’d been killed off in the first chapters. Unfortunately, he survives, and I’m still meant to like him, as all of the ‘good’/’hero’ characters do, and think he’s an excellent judge of character. It also did not help that his POV sections were written in first-person, often making foreboding statements that felt unnecessary.
Other issues with Empress of Rome included Hadrian’s characterisation. By the third section, it felt like his character had shifted significantly, but inexplicably, for the worst. Without understanding why, it was hard to really accept — although I suspect there was a one-sentence explanation of “he was always like this, he was just hiding it before”. I also didn’t really like how his sexuality was treated, it felt a bit too much like a punchline to a joke.
Plotina’s POV was also a chore to get through — she was flat out unlikeable and meant to be, but she lacked a deliciously evil, faintly ridiculous edge and intrigue that made Quinn’s earlier villains so entertaining.
The plot felt a bit undeveloped and undefined, filled with many divergent threads that don’t really go anywhere. Even the relationship between the two protagonists, Vix and Sabina, didn’t really go anywhere. They’re in love, they have sex, they stop having sex, Vix hates her until he stumbles over her again and then they’re right back at the start of the cycle again. I’m not sure what the brief diversion into the problems of be a Jew in the Roman Empire was about. It’s a serious topic, Quinn hints at a serious debate, but it goes nowhere and just sort of sits there, feeling unnecessary to the story.
The ending was inconclusive, so much so that I have a feeling that Empress of Rome and the next book, [b:Lady of the Eternal City|20486495|Lady of the Eternal City (The Empress of Rome, #4)|Kate Quinn|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1404850357s/20486495.jpg|32737496], are really meant to be the one novel, but the story got too big to be confined in one book.
But really? All of this could have been forgiven if I hadn’t spent most of the novel wishing Hadrian would brutally murder Vix.