I use a Kobo Mini for reading ebooks, and supplying the book as a PDF meant it was unreadable, due to the inability to adjust font size and margins, and typeface.

The Confessions of Young Nero is a fictional account of the early years of Nero – or Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus, to give him the name by which he was known as a child. Narrated in his own words, Nero begins by taking us through the events of his childhood, starting with one of his earliest memories: the time his uncle, the Emperor Caligula, tried to drown him. This is the young Nero’s first experience of the ruthless plotting and scheming which surrounds those close to the imperial family; it is never far from his thoughts as he grows older and, following the deaths of first Caligula and then his successor Claudius, becomes emperor himself.

Although, as I’ve mentioned, most of the story is narrated by Nero, there are several much shorter sections scattered throughout the book narrated by two other characters: Locusta, a poisoner whose skills are very much in demand, and Acte, the former slave who becomes Nero’s lover. This was one of the least successful aspects of the book, in my opinion. I really don’t think those sections added anything to the story and I’m not sure why those two characters in particular were chosen, as there were plenty of others who had just as much significance in Nero’s life.

Nero himself is portrayed much more sympathetically than I’d expected. Admittedly I don’t know a huge amount about him, but from the little I had previously read I had formed a very different impression of Nero than the one given by this novel. I can see from Margaret George’s author’s note that she has deliberately taken a revisionist approach to Nero’s story, believing that he has been unfairly treated by history and that some of the accounts we rely on for information about him were written to discredit him. I can accept this (it reminds me of the way Tudor propaganda was intended to discredit Richard III) but I personally found this version of Nero far too nice! Nothing was ever really his fault and on occasions where he did commit a wicked act, it was because he had been driven to it and left with no choice. I think a more complex, morally ambiguous character would have been of more appeal to me.

I did like the characterisation of the main female characters in the novel, particularly Messalina, Agrippina and Poppaea, three ambitious women each of whom wields power in her own way. Something which comes across very strongly throughout the novel – and especially when one of these women is involved – is the continuous sense of danger and the way in which anyone of importance in the Roman Empire had to be constantly on their guard against an attempt on their life.

Having such limited knowledge of Ancient Rome, I found the complicated family relationships difficult to follow at first, but I think Margaret George does an excellent job of clarifying them for readers like myself and by the time I was a few chapters into the book I was starting to get Nero’s family tree clear in my mind. As this is quite a long novel and only tells the first half of Nero’s story, it allows plenty of time to explore the major personal and political incidents which take place during this stage of Nero’s life; some of this was familiar to me, but much of it was new and I found it all fascinating. While important events such as Boudicca’s revolt are described in detail, Margaret George also devotes many pages to discussing Nero’s love of music, poetry and sport. I can appreciate how much research must have gone into the writing of this novel!

I’m pleased that I’ve read this book as I think I’ve learned a lot from it – and despite having some negative feelings about it as well as positive ones, I do want to read the rest of the story and will be looking out for the sequel.

When I was young, I discovered Margaret George and devoured her historical novels. It has been quite a long time since I read anything by her, but she has kept to a similar formula – taking a historical character and then writing their life, usually from the first person perspective. Often the people she writes about have stories that are very well known, but she incorporates such detail in the re-telling, that you really do have the sensation of a life lived. Obviously, this is fiction and putting thoughts into a real person’s mind, however long ago they lived, is a difficult thing to do. However, it is obvious that the author does a huge amount of research and this is reflected in the care she takes to tell the story thoroughly. However, this is not a dry re-telling, but George really does attempt to breathe life into the characters and to make the era they lived in also feel realistic.

I must admit that Nero is somebody I knew a fairly small amount about, especially compared to other Roman Emperor’s. There are all sorts of images that you think of – probably for many of us, it is that of Peter Ustinov playing music while Rome was in flames (the image of Nero fiddling while Rome burnt is similar to that of Marie Antoinette telling people to eat cake, in that it becomes so associated with them that it is hard to separate fact from fiction).

In this book, George takes Nero back to the four year old Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus, whose mother has been exiled, his father dead, and who is, literally when we first meet him, at the mercy of his Uncle Caligula. This early exposure to the whims of a Caesar give the young Nero a forbidding view of his future. He is privy to early, huddled, secretive meetings by relatives about ridding themselves of Caligula and, when this comes to pass, he finds himself swooped up by his mother, Agrippina, and taken to Rome. Claudius is now Emperor, but life is still not safe, and never will be. Nero is fairly young when he realises that he has the, “blood of murderers coursing through him,” and that his early witness to violence and politics are deeply embedded in his life, whether he likes it or not.

There is plenty here about Nero’s love of music, theatre and games, which people associate with him. His desire to have someone to trust that he can cling to, but the knowledge that his ancestors loom over his life and give it a direction as part of the most powerful Julio-Claudian dynasty. This is a tale of Ancient Rome which has everything you would expect – threats of death, poison, seduction, murder, power, politics and the man chosen to be the heir of Claudius, who needs to be ever watchful, suspicious and unsure who he can trust. This is an entertaining historical novel and an enjoyable addition to Margaret George’s series of fictional biographies. I received a copy of this book from the publisher, via NetGalley, for review.

I received a free E-Arc from Netgalley.

The Confessions of Young Nero is the third book I've read in the last three weeks about Rome and her Empire. I was most intrigued to find out more about a time period that I've little studied and which previously, I've had little interest in, but did find it quite annoying that there are no years given throughout the text - I wanted to know where Nero's story fit with the other books I've read.

To begin with, The Confessions of Young Nero is a very good introduction to the life of corrupt Rome. The story starts when Nero can be no more than a three year old, and, being told in his voice, progresses well as he grows and develops while all around him the ambitions of his family, and then his mother in particular, guide his path. There are murders and plots and deaths and a wonderful collection of debauched characters, as there should be in any story of Rome, and all in all, the story begins to build to something that promises to be truly intriguing.

Sadly, this doesn't happen. No sooner has Nero become Emperor than the focus of the book shifts and suddenly all the drama and intrigue happens only in Nero's fantasies as he strives to be an artist as opposed to an Emperor. This would not have spoilt the story if the focus had been a little less on building works and reciting poetry, and playing musical instruments and more on how he actually governed, as there is very little of this, other than the occasional long list of people he has in positions of power who are fulfilling certain roles for him.

I understand from reading the comments by the author that this is very much a revisionist approach to Nero, and I have no problem with that at all. For too long the stereotypes of historical figures have masked any efforts to find out the truth beneath all the lies and mishaps of the survival of historical documents, and yet, in this case, the story that emerges isn't one that holds the readers attention as well as it should have done.

There were brief glimpses that the story would become somewhat more interested in the way that Nero actually ruled, but these are never fully realised, and the reader is left thinking that being the Emperor was easy-peasy provided you could stay alive to do so. This is a shame. I would have liked to know more about events in Britain and more about events concerning the followers of Christ, but these details are only given in short bursts, two tantalizing to offer any real insight.

The author presents an incredibly detailed view of Rome and its surrounding cities - how realistic this is, or isn't, I can't say, but there are points when it does feel as though you might be strolling around Rome or Pompeii, and that is an enjoyable aspect of the novel.

I would say it started as a good 4/5 star novel, but withered away at the end when I was only reading because I knew I'd nearly finished it.

Set in the duplicitous, cutthroat world of the Roman imperial family in the first century AD, this novel had the scope for plots and psychosis aplenty, an impression encouraged by its titular promise of 'confessions'. I hoped for something along the lines of I, Claudius, taking the story of the Julio-Claudians into the next generation with the same kind of meaty detail that I enjoyed in Tom Holland's Dynasty. However, George's decision to take a revisionist viewpoint, and present Nero as a well-meaning, misunderstand and popularly-beloved emperor, means that much of the story's dramatic flair is sacrificed.

Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus was never meant to be emperor. His childhood is spent at the mercy of his unpredictable uncle, the Emperor Caligula, but he is able to spend much of the time living on the quiet farm of his aunt Lepida. However, when Caligula dies and Lucius's great-uncle Claudius comes to the throne, exiled members of the imperial family return to Rome and, among them, is Lucius's mother, the ambitious lady Agrippina. Alert to her vulnerability as a single woman, Agrippina carries her young son off to her villa near Rome, where he presently gains a new stepfather: the senator Crispus. For a brief time, Lucius lives in a haze of happiness, blessed with attentive tutors and the study of all sorts of things that capture his enthusiasm. He becomes a keen sportsman, an avid fan of chariot racing, and a devotee of music and the arts. Even the looming shadow cast by the empress Messalina, who sees in him a threat to the succession, can't destroy his happiness. But Lucius' life as a wealthy young gentleman can only last so long.

After a series of unfortunate coincidences - the death of his beloved stepfather Crispus, and the death of Messalina - Lucius' fate alters swiftly and irrevocably when his widowed mother becomes the wife of Claudius. Suddenly he has to give up his quiet life at the villa and move to the Roman court, where he finds himself an unwilling pawn on a game-board that has only two outcomes: death, or victory. As the adults around him plot and poison, Lucius and his cousins, Claudius' children Octavia and Britannicus, are made de facto enemies. After all, only one of the two boys can inherit, and Agrippina is determined to give fate a helping hand, to ensure that her own authority remains strong. As Claudius adopts him, and then betrothes him to Octavia, Lucius must also give up his own name: he is now to be Nero Claudius Caesar Drusus Germanicus, and a legend is born.

The family relationships and politics of this period are labyrinthine and George does a good job of clarifying them for a general readership. She has evidently done a lot of research and I was glad to see an author's note, along with a select bibliography, at the end. It's always good to see that an author has thought carefully and at length about their subject and George, of course, has done so with a particular purpose. She avowedly wishes to avoid the sensationalism that's so often been attached to Nero, and to emphasise that he was a wise administrator as well as a talented artist on many levels and a true man of the people. For the most part, Nero (through his first-person narration) only 'confesses' that he's a terribly nice chap and that any questionable acts have been forced upon him by the intransigence of those around him. This might have been quite fun if we had the sense that he was being disingenuous, because an unreliable narrator always adds a delicious extra layer to a story, but it seems that George wants us to believe him completely. We are meant to sympathise with this well-meaning, sensitive young man, and to pity him when, towards the end of the novel, he responds to circumstances by developing a darker side to his character. Personally, I was relieved when this happened, as I found him implausibly 'nice' for most of the book and was itching for a bit more personality. I'm not saying that Nero has to be bouncing off the wall with madness, but I would have been interested to see a 'good' emperor dealing in a more thought-provoking way with questions of ethics and political ambition. Being 'nice' doesn't have to mean being someone else's pawn.

As ever, I was most attracted by the powerful women of the piece. Here, the men are often manipulated by their female relatives (although George hints, pleasingly, that Claudius had a well-concealed dark side). The chief struggle for control is that between Messalina and Agrippina, two very powerful women whose own ambitions will affect the path of an entire empire. It's thanks to them that life in the palace is so isolated and dangerous for the younger generation, something George does convey well. Her scene-setting is full of detail, from descriptions of the food and furnishings, to the habits of daily life; although I questioned her suggestion that a young emperor-elect could unwind by taking strolls around the Forum or other parts of Rome. Surely a band of Praetorians would have been on board even for the junior members of the imperial family? One other thing that jarred with me, though, was the completely disproportionate amount of page-space given to the Boudiccan revolt. No other political event was described in this much detail and unfortunately the description was also rather dry. Although it was being described to Nero in person, it felt like pure exposition, with a textbook account simply being put in a character's mouth. It was a rare misstep of pacing, since much of the book flows well in that respect.

I also questioned the need for chapters told from other viewpoints. Nero is the main character and, since we are clearly meant to be on his 'side', it makes sense that we follow the story at his side. If only his narrative voice had been a tiny bit more vivid and engaging; a tiny bit more colourful! But, in any case, we are committed to him: why do we need chapters told by Locusta and Acte? As far as I can tell, they didn't add anything new and served merely to reinforce George's implication that Nero is generally admired by other characters. Unfortunately they also emphasised that there is little discernible difference between the various narrative voices.

I sense that The Confessions of Young Nero wants to be part of the traditional of fictitious Roman memoirs exemplified by the Memoirs of Hadrian and I, Claudius. Personally I don't feel it reaches this level, as it never quite succeeds in creating the deep characterisation that both these books manage so well and, without that rich sense of personality, I found it very hard to see Nero as a person and not as a character on paper. The claustrophobia of court life, the inner torments of a good person forced to do bad things, and the struggle of coming to terms with the rule of a vast empire, could all have been brought out more effectively. Having said that, George has done her research very thoroughly and she is to be congratulated for trying to tell a familiar story in a less sensational and more thoughtful manner. It's just that, personally, I would much prefer a Nero with sharper teeth.

For the full review, which will be published on 14 March 2017, please see my blog:
https://theidlewoman.net/2017/03/14/the-confessions-of-young-nero-margaret-george