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    Empress of the Seven Hills
    Empress of the Seven Hills
    Empress of the Seven Hills
    Audiobook18 hours

    Empress of the Seven Hills

    Written by Kate Quinn

    Narrated by Elizabeth Wiley

    4/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    Powerful, prosperous, and expanding ever farther into the untamed world, the Roman Empire has reached its zenith under the rule of the beloved Emperor Trajan. But neither Trajan nor his reign can last forever...


    Brash and headstrong, Vix is a celebrated ex-gladiator returned to Rome to make his fortune. The sinuous, elusive Sabina is a senator's daughter who craves adventure. Sometimes lovers, sometimes enemies, Vix and Sabina are united by their devotion to Trajan. Trajan's ambitious Empress has her own plans for Sabina. And the aristocratic Hadrian-the Empress's ruthless protege and Vix's mortal enemy-has ambitions he confesses to no one, ambitions rooted in a secret prophecy.


    When Trajan falls, the hardened soldier, the enigmatic empress, the adventurous girl, and the scheming politician will all be caught in a deadly whirlwind of desire and death that may seal their fates, and that of the entire Roman Empire...
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherTantor Media, Inc
    Release dateMar 31, 2015
    ISBN9781494579029
    Empress of the Seven Hills
    Author

    Kate Quinn

    Kate Quinn is the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of historical fiction. A native of Southern California, she attended Boston University, where she earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in classical voice. A lifelong history buff, she has written four novels in the Empress of Rome Saga and two books set in the Italian Renaissance before turning to the 20th century with The Alice Network, The Huntress, The Rose Code, and The Diamond Eye. All have been translated into multiple languages. She and her husband now live in California with three black rescue dogs.

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    Reviews for Empress of the Seven Hills

    4/5

    93 ratings8 reviews

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    • 5/5
      Exhilarating and easy read about Vercingetorix, Hadrian, and Trajan. I love Quinn's books and the way she makes Roman events so interesting and personal. Of course, the ending leaves much to be desired, since it's part of a series, and I don't want to wait another year for her next one to come out! Write faster~!
    • 5/5
      I love it, just as much as the other two. The characters are so easy to get drawn into, and the plot is terrific. Can't wait to read more about Vix.
    • 3/5
      I liked this book but not as much as the first two. I think my main problem was that some of the story was told from the point of view of a character I really could NOT stand, and she soured me on a lot of the novel. I'm really glad that Quinn chose not to write out a lot of the battles in detail, filling in only a few places that were of import. I also wish more had been written about Trajan himself rather than the stories of him always being from everyone else's point of view. Still, I'm going to read the next one just to see what happens to everyone left in this one.
    • 5/5
      LOVED this book!!!! That's all I can say!
    • 3/5
      I cannot wait for the sequel... And I expect something like a Simon Boccanegra duet between Vix-Fiesco and Hadrian-Boccanegra.
    • 5/5
      Love, love, love Kate Quinn! I cannot WAIT to read the next installment of this book and see what happens... Terrific read!
    • 4/5
      Author Kate Quinn, of Daughters of Rome and Mistress of Rome fame, is back with another wonderful trip back to ancient Rome in Empress of the Seven Hills. Much like her previous novels, Empress is filled with fascinating characters caught in a dangerous world of love, power, political intrigue and lust. Emperor Trajan has come to the throne, and Rome is growing into the most prosperous and expansion nation on the face of the planet. In the midst of the empire's power, ex-gladiator Vix falls in love with rebellious senator's daughter Sabina, but the pair's romance is doomed to never be fully realized. As the pair becomes caught in the emperor's (and more importantly, empress') political webs, the world because far more dangerous and their joyful future could crumble into dust.Empress has all of the same elements that made Quinn's previous novels shine -it's tightly written, dripping with excellent historical research and has great characters that shine through on every page. From the very beginning I was wrapped up in Vix and Sabina's struggles and I wanted to see the pair overcome it all. And the politics...the political intrigues were incredibly well constructed here and just powerful.Probably my only possible criticism of Empress is that it really doesn't offer anything new in Quinn's novels. Despite that, it's an incredibly solid entry that has everything fans of Quinn's previous novels will expect -great history, well-crafted detail, multi-faceted characters and a powerful story where romance and politics intersect just enough to keep things interesting -without being overpowering. At this point, though, I'd like to see something a little fresher from Quinn -though she completely commands the world of ancient Rome in her books.
    • 4/5
      Kate Quinn knows how to serve up a full-flavored Rome with plenty of spice. Empress of the Seven Hills is the third of her books (Mistress of Rome and Daughters of Rome), although you can get by without reading them in order. They are all page-turners, lots of fun.As usual with Kate Quinn’s books, Empress is driven along by fully-developed characters. Her main heroine, Sabina, starts out interesting and keeps developing and growing. Quinn has a way of granting her central female characters the fate they work very hard to get, but then aren’t the least sure they want once they gain it. Some of the book’s characters are deliciously wicked, several decidedly lusty. She depicts intelligence with depth and perception. Her smart people aren’t always likeable or good, but you admire their brains. The characters we like, and there are several, keep us rooting for them with increasing fervor, and sometimes things come out as we wish. As with her other books, Empress is full of juicy relationships, both offbeat and more conventional. You won’t be able to predict the paths of this cast. They kept surprising me.Quinn is an excellent writer of dialogue. You get an intimate feel for her characters through their words. Vix, a physically commanding legionary soldier with an explosive temper, uses short, muscular expressions. Hadrian, who starts out a fairly likeable man but who increasingly reveals a cold stiffness, uses long, pompous sentences even in the middle of a military camp. Quinn chooses a contemporary idiom including the expletives you hear in 21st century America, but it works well. Quinn’s dialogue never yanks me out of the past or jars me as inappropriate. I stay right there inside her characters in ancient Rome. Many of the concerns and themes prevalent in ancient Rome are still with us in contemporary America, which may partially explain why the modern idiom feels right to me: political cynicism about corruption especially financial, contradictory sexual mores, the scorn one faction has for the “elitist intellectuals,” and the breakdown of family and other social structures, or at least the perceived breakdown. Quinn fudges a bit with some history—most particularly with Titus’s role—but she owns up to everything in her author’s note and explains the changes. They are integral to her tale. She’s great on the details of life—what a legionary ate while on the march and a quick look at how he cooked it, for example. Her knowledge of the period is plenty deep enough that she avoids the failing of a lot of historical fiction writers when they drag out the same details over and over for lack of knowing any others. She added to my store of interesting facts and, more importantly, she builds a persuasive world. You’ll be there. Daughters of Rome excelled at portraying the Rome of women. This book does that to some extent also, but much of the time it steps into the world of men. Sabina’s interest in seeing the world takes her far from the safe atrium of her father’s home, and she certainly doesn’t like hanging out with her mother-in-law. This gives new territory for Quinn’s talent.