Thank you so much for letting me review this title. Unfortunately this just was not the book for me and I only made it through about the first 80 pages. I don’t write reviews for books I don’t finish as I feel this would be unfair.

Based around the life of the third Roman emperor, Caligula, this was a fascinating read. I know next to nothing about this period of history so it's a good thing that this book doesn't require any prior knowledge. Although it is quite a slow read, I found it to be engaging throughout and never felt that it dragged. The politics and intrigue are so well done. I liked that fact that this is told from one of the sisters of Caligula - it provides an interesting perspective. The book was well written and I found it easy to get into the flow of the story. Overall I enjoyed this historical fiction very much and would recommend it, especially if you are interested in the time period.

Born into the family Julii, descendants of Julius Caesar and the family of emperors, Gaius Julius Caesar was the third son of Germanicus. his father dead, some said poisoned, the family returned to Rome and came under the aegis of Tiberius, the increasingly mad Emperor. As Caligula (as Gaius was known) watched his two elder brothers named heir and then die, as well as his mother, he became adept at seeing all and divulging nothing. Finally given the opportunity to rule Caligula became increasingly tormented, power-crazed and insane. Watched over by his younger sister, Luvilla, Caligula drove Rome to turn in on itself.

Everybody thinks they know about Caligula, the mad emperor who made his horse a senator and killed many through paranoia, in this book Turney takes a slightly different view to the norm. A fictionalised account narrated by Luvilla, here the difficult childhood that Caligula experiences is used to explain why the adult acted in the way that he did. The Julii family craved power and would do nothing to stop those who got in their way, justifying horrible actions. Most of the events in the book are well-documented and Turney has skillfully linked them into a coherent tale which emphasises his knowledge of Roman life.

This is not my usual genre of history. I know little beyond the widely known in terms of Roman history. However, I thought I’d give this a go and see if it piqued an interest. Unfortunately it didn’t.

Is Caligula really the cruel, sadistic tyrant he’s often portrayed as? Or is there more to the man than what history chooses to tell? Told by his sister Lavilla, we see the fun loving boy develop into the calculating man who must take care of his family in order to survive. With betrayal after betrayal we see his decent into madness, and what it truly means to sacrifice everything to rule with absolute power.

This was really well written, and is certainly a different take on the ‘known’ history of Caligula. It stresses the point that history is often an extension of the truth and shouldn’t always be taken at face value. There are not many surviving historical sources that tells us what Caligula was really like, with most stories coming many years after his death. This leaves his story very open to interpretation, and this was an interesting premise. The descriptions are also vivid and really help set the scene for someone who knows very little about Roman history. I wasn’t confused reading this at any point.

I also thought the overall atmosphere in the story is built up well. There’s an undercurrent of tension that builds gradually over time, mixed with constant underlying suspicion. It feels like Caligula needed to be constantly on his guard, never trusting anyone. No wonder he went mad with paranoia.

Unfortunately, for the most part, I found this rather dull, which I think is due to the subject matter just not really being interesting to me, and also because I found there wasn’t much character development beyond that of Caligula, who is wonderfully complex. There was so much potential to build Lavilla into a complex character, but this isn’t developed. She comes across as more of a biased narrator with an almost unwavering amount of affection for her brother that boards on worship, which I found annoying. Also I found that sometimes having her as the only narrator was rather jarring, and odd, as she seems to turn up in places she shouldn’t be just in order to overhear a conversation to further the plot. I think it would have been more beneficial in this instance to have more than one view point - for clarity and a more unbiased option of Caligula.

I think this would appeal to those who enjoy a Roman historical novel, as a do find the premise quite unique. However, it just wasn’t my thing.

Caligula by Simon Turney

There are few people in more danger in Tiberius’s Rome than the children of Germanicus. Germanicus, the nephew and adopted son of Tiberius, was Rome’s greatest general of the day, an emperor in waiting. But he is dead and his sons are Tiberius’s heirs while the daughters are pawns in marriage. To be an heir to Tiberius is a dangerous thing, especially with the emperor tucked away on his luxurious island retreat of Capri, having left the business of Rome’s protection to Sejanus, the Prefect of the Praetorian Guard, master of an army. Sejanus hates the children of Germanicus. He wishes them reduced in number. The youngest are sent to Capri to live under the nose of an insane emperor in his villa of games, superstitions and murder. There we meet the youngest child, Livilla, sister of Gaius, a boy known to friends and history alike as Caligula. And it’s Caligula’s story that Livilla tells.

Although the Roman senate stopped short of damning Caligula’s memory after his death, thanks to the influence of his uncle and successor Claudius, history has not been kind to Caligula and the stories of his dissolute life and rule have been hard for authors to resist (I’ll never forget John Hurt’s portrayal of Caligula in the TV adaptation of Robert Graves’ I, Claudius), but was Caligula really as mad as many would have it? And if he was a monster, was he born that way or was he another victim of Rome’s extraordinary imperial family and its ambitious generals and politicians? This is a topic that can’t fail in my eyes and, after a recent spate of novels re-examining or celebrating the monster that was Nero, it’s good news indeed to now find his uncle Caligula in the spotlight.

The figure of Caligula is undoubtedly a gift to an author but it must be done right. And Simon Turney has done a magnificent job of stripping away the infamy and propaganda to reassemble a fresh image of Caligula, as seen through the eyes of an innocent child, his adoring youngest sister Livilla. But that is just the beginning. We meet Caligula as a boy, living at the edge of a lethal court, in daily risk of exile or execution, but with an innate and ingenious talent for survival. The boy we meet at the beginning is not the man we leave at the end and it’s this transformation which is so immensely gripping and fascinating, and original.

It’s easy to focus on Caligula because he is a tour de force throughout this novel, an exceedingly charismatic and gifted individual, who, at least in the early days, is very easy to like. It’s spellbinding watching him grow. But there are other people to watch here, too, including Livilla who herself is altered by events. Her story is every bit as compelling as her brother’s and it made me weep. We grow particularly close to Livilla because she is our eyes and ears. She is often a secret witness, hiding in gardens, behind curtains, around corners. Little escapes Livilla. It’s what she must do with the knowledge she learns that causes her the most pain.

Another character who instantly grabbed is Agrippina, sister to Livilla and Caligula, and perhaps as notorious to history as her brother. This is Nero’s mother in waiting and we all know what happened to her. She is shocking! There’s no rewriting of history here – Agrippina is a nasty piece of work and there can be no excuses. She is, as a result, a page stealer.

Caligula is a beautifully structured and developed novel. I must say that I was surprised that the author picked a female voice for his narrator but he has done a wonderful job in making her feel real and it was an inspired idea to reveal Caligula through her eyes. This is a Caligula I can believe in. It’s a fine psychological portrait of a damaged man, someone who could have been great, who wanted to be great, but instead became a devil. But it also paints a fabulous picture of Rome and Capri. It’s both beautiful and terrifying and Capri in particular is absolutely horrifying, the stuff of nightmares. It’s hardly surprising that Caligula corrupts in such an appalling and hideous manner. It’s a mesmerising, haunting and disturbing transformation and it literally gave me nightmares.

Caligula is an enormous achievement and most definitely one to be proud of. And what a beautiful cover! It’s great news to learn that this is the first in a series and it has a fantastic title – The Damned Emperors! Irresistible! I can’t wait to see who is next for the Turney treatment.

Other reviews and features
Marius’ Mules I: The Invasion of Gaul
Marius’ Mules II: The Belgae
‘Writing historical locations’ – a guest post

Our narrator is Livilla, sister of Caligula, meaning the reader gets an insider’s perspective on Caligula as brother, son, confidante, protector but also as cruel and tyrannical ruler. At times, it did seem a bit too convenient that Livilla managed to be in the right place at the right time to overhear important conversations but, on the other hand, it’s reasonable that her position in the imperial family would have given her freedoms not available to other women.

What the author does superbly well is bring to life the atmosphere of perpetual suspicion within the imperial household, the need to be continually on your guard in case a casual glance, a small gesture or a misplaced word should provide an opportunity for an accusation of disloyalty or treason. It’s a world where violent, cruel and frequently gruesome death is a daily occurrence and an ever-present possibility. Where you learn not to react to death being meted out on a whim in front of you because, if you do, you might just be next.

At one point, Livilla asks her brother, “When did we turn into the very people we used to fear?” The book makes a persuasive case for how a loving brother and intelligent young man might be transformed by repeated betrayals, disappointments and bereavements into a brute. And how, after years of the self-imposed restraint necessary to navigate the murky waters of Imperial Roman politics, the dam might eventually burst and paranoia take the place of sensible mistrust of other’s motives. Livilla nails it when she says, ‘You see, he had spent eight years wearing a mask of silent, stoic humility in order to survive in a world of wicked and dangerous masters.’

I certainly enjoyed being asked to consider a different view of Caligula from that in other books I’ve read such as Robert Graves’ I, Claudius. The book eschews some of the more lurid myths commonly associated with Caligula and the author writes interestingly about this in his Historical Note.

I found the book a thrilling, compelling read and I will definitely look out for future books in the series. The author has written several other series set in ancient Rome under the name S J A Turney and I’ve added a number of these to my wishlist. Caligula is highly recommended for historical fiction fans that enjoy the intrigue and scandal of Roman history – and are not afraid to get close to open windows.

I received an advance reader copy courtesy of NetGalley and publishers Orion Publishing in return for an honest and unbiased review.

What a wonderful read this was. I remain fascinated by the attention to details of the life of Caligula without going into the usual depraved sexual side of him. Written as though by his sister made the story come so much to life and feel that as a reader I was there with them all. The characters were real and the scenes so well described.
The added advantage of reading this is that it has encourages me to research further into the Roman history and read more about the other emperors and indeed Roman Life.
This was pure enjoyment to read and I look forward to reading further books on historical characters being written by this great author.

A fascinating and engrossing look at one of the more notorious of the Roman emperors, Caligula. Historical fiction is a balancing act of working with what is known about the reality and weaving it into an interesting story - the author has done a good job with this book in both aspects. I was glad to see that Simon Turney didn't go the easy route of playing up Caligula's supposed depravity and cruelty. It was far more chilling and effective to see how this could have developed from his early life. I am definitely interested in reading more in the series.

Simon Turney (usually billed as S.J.A. Turney) has built up quite a following with his e-books set in the Roman army, especially the Marius' Mules series. They've been at the edge of my consciousness for a while, so I welcomed the chance to have a taster of Turney's writing via this new novel. It's the first in a series which will focus on the deliciously colourful emperors of the Julio-Claudian dynasty. In tackling Caligula, however, Turney takes the same approach that Margaret George did with Nero, attempting to cut through the accretions of centuries of propaganda and legend, to reveal the man beneath. It's a noble attempt, but not without its problems, as the Julio-Claudians are always at their most interesting when they're barking mad.

The children of the great general Germanicus return home to Rome after his tragically early death. Under the guidance of their grieving mother Agrippina, they are brought up at a safe distance from the schemes and dangers of the imperial court. Our narrator, young Livilla, thinks of little beyond the charming circle of her family: her eldest brothers Nero and Drusus; her manipulative sister, also called Agrippina; sweet Drusilla; and her favourite brother Gaius, nicknamed Caligula ('Little Boots') by his father's sentimental troops. It is Livilla who shows us Gaius in his youth: a precocious, charming and wary boy who understands the dangers of life within the imperial family - much better than any of his siblings. For this is the age of Tiberius, and death is in the air.

I first read about Tiberius in Robert Graves's I Claudius and there's something of the same quality about Turney's languid and vicious emperor. Shadowed by the ambitious Sejanus, Tiberius grows more and more paranoid as he grows older. His eyes wander over his grandchildren, weighing and measuring them. First, he seems to favour Livilla's big brothers Nero and Drusus - honest men, soldiers and citizens. But Rome is no longer a city that prizes honesty. And, as the emperor retreats to Capri, to wither away and indulge his vices in solitude, Rome begins to turn on itself. As Sejanus and his men cut swathes through the ruling classes, Livilla, Drusilla and Gaius find themselves increasingly isolated. When an invitation comes for them to visit Capri, they know that their fates now rest upon a knife-edge. Only Gaius will have the wit to keep them safe.

Turney has done a great deal of research to make sure that his story sticks to the known facts, and he has a very good point: that history is propaganda, more often than not. It's most likely that Caligula wasn't the raging lunatic imagined by Robert Graves and brought so chillingly to life by John Hurt in the I, Claudius TV series. But I can't help feeling that Turney goes too far in the other direction. His Gaius is so precocious as to be unbelievable, exhibiting a political mind and a breadth of vocabulary which are frankly implausible in a child of ten. He seems to be already a grown man in a boy's body. In some ways this is handy, as Gaius can always explain the finer details of Roman politics to Livilla - and thus to the reader. On the other hand, it means that conversations sometimes slip into info-dumping rather than realistic dialogue. Having said that, I had some sympathy with the overall picture, of Caligula as a well-meaning man who ended up being moulded into the monster that everyone around him believed he already was. 

For me, another problem was Livilla herself. Not every author can write a convincing first-person narrative from the perspective of the opposite sex, and Livilla didn't make a very convincing woman. From girlhood to the end, she's Gaius' shadow: a character who exists only to follow him, admire him and cherish him. Turney explains in his author's note that he chose her because he needed someone who could be close to Gaius all the time - not, note, because he found anything interesting in Livilla herself. We have no real sense of her own growth to womanhood. She's given a husband at one point, but he is conveniently kept away from her for long periods of time so that she can focus all her energies on her beloved brother (and no, I don't mean 'beloved' in that way: Turney avoids all suggestion of anything naughty going on between the siblings). Essentially, she's a kind of sounding board for Gaius: a mirror to reflect back his perfection to the reader, and to render his degeneration even more tragic. The problem is that I didn't really find her that interesting and her narration felt no livelier than a standard third-person narrative. That's a problem, in a way, when you sense that the author is much more interested in Character A than by the character through whose eyes they've chosen to tell the story. It grates a little.

By chance, I have another novel about Caligula waiting on my shelf. Judging by the cover, though, that'll be cheerful swords-and-sandals tosh, rather than the novelised history that Turney has, commendably, tried to present here. No doubt all will be revealed in due course. I have to confess that I haven't been left burning to read his other novels, although he clearly plans to continue the tale of the emperors. Next up, no doubt, we'll have the tale of Caligula's unpleasant, wily uncle Claudius; and we've already had a glimpse of Caligula's little nephew Lucius (nicknamed 'Nero'), the bonny son of his murderous sister Agrippina. Clearly, Rome is in for interesting times.

While I'm always curious to see an author offering a revisionist approach, this felt a little flat. I'm sure that Caligula was occasionally, like Nero, a jolly good chap and that his family were very fond of him (until he turned on them), but I can't help thinking that the salacious, shocking and colourful stories of Suetonius are just that little bit more fun.

This review will be published on 25 January 2018 at the following link:
https://theidlewoman.net/2018/01/25/caligula-simon-turney

A Thing of Crimson Darkness

More than half a century ago, a Classical scholar named JPVD Balsdon wrote a short book entitled, The Emperor Gaius. This title made a statement: not Caligula, a childish nickname, but the man’s real name, Gaius Julius Caesar. Balsdon proceeded to debunk the received history of the emperor’s reign, horses made consul, armies ordered to pick up shells in a war against the god of the sea, ridiculous bridges built across bays as examples of supreme arrogance and advanced lunacy. No, Balsdon’s Gaius, was an emperor with a sense of humour, who in exasperation with a docile, fawning senate, made fools of them.

Turney’s novel follows a similar path. The narrator is Gaius Caligula’s youngest sister, who is presented as his one loyal follower. (This is despite the historical Livilla plotting against Caligula.) In this version, Gaius is shaped by the destruction that is visited upon his family by the neglect of the emperor Tiberius and the active schemes of the Prefect Sejanus. Forced into acquiescence for most of his youth, he is appalled by the passive attitudes of most senators and the active disloyalty of others when he becomes emperor. A plot by senators brings about a change in the young emperor and the familiar stories begin to appear, but all with entirely rational explanations.

The question is, I think, does the removal of madness and lunatic acts, lessen the impact of the story. For some, perhaps so, for others, the story may actually inspire increased interest. The sub-title is important – The Damned Emperors; this is an emperor whose memory was thoroughly traduced after his death. Turney has given an entertaining, but alternative, point of view. My feeling is that the novel was slightly too long, and the role of Livilla did not really convince, but I enjoyed the novel and look forward to the next in the series.

On the whole, this is quite a gripping read which rattles along nicely. It appears to be very well researched and takes an interesting alternative point of view on the famed Emperor, Caligula, his character and motivations which gives the reader and interesting insight into history. I'd have rated it more highly, however, had I not felt that, at times, the narrator seems to be telling us the same thing in slightly different words-this made me long for a red editing pen!- and the numerous verbatim repetitions of the Dream Sequence, particularly towards the end of the novel, were particularly tedious and really exasperated me. I suspect other readers might respond in the same way so, if possible, I'd urge publishers to have another look at this.

I have to start by saying I am a huge fan of Simon (SJA) Turney. His Marius' Mules series following Caesar's conquest of Gaul and subsequent civil war is probably my favourite Roman series, and easily one of the best current historical fiction series out there. His other works, which range from fantasy, to middle ages Byzantium are all fantastic reads.

This, his first traditionally published novel, is a masterpiece of historical fiction. I've always considered Caligula to be the mad, incestual tyrant we are always led to believe he was, so i struggled to see how Turney could turn this around and paint him as human. But it does it so well. Told from the point of view for Caligula's sister, we are led through a tale from his beginnings as the last surviving son of Germanicus, through to his murder at the hands of his Praetorian Guards.

Turney weaves a tale that shows Caligula as a real, flawed human being, thrust into a life that so vary rarely ends well. His pains are real. And even as he slowly descends into a form of madness that was inescapable, and towards a fate that we already know, i found myself rooting for old little boots. Its a sad tale, beautifully told by a master storyteller.

I really cannot wait for 'Commodus' next year, and heres hoping that a certain member of his Guard makes a guest appearance!