BLAST, BLITZ, PROMOS, REVEALS, & TOURS . . . : SPOTLIGHT w/EXCERPT - HISTORICAL FICTION

The Emperor's Assassin

by Autumn Bardot

Publication Date: October 1st 2019

Flores Publishing

eBook & Paperback; 437 Pages

Genre: Historical Fiction

BLURB
History paints her as the first female serial killer… Locusta is the daughter of a winemaker in the Roman province of Gaul. She enjoys the indulged childhood of the elite, her concerns only about the day’s amusements. She rides gentle ponies, attends parties, reads Ovid, and learns the herbal arts from her servant. But the day after meeting her betrothed, Locusta discovers the consequences of possessing such dangerous knowledge. Ordered to leave her pastoral life, Locusta is thrust into a world of intrigue, scandal, and murder—where treason lurks behind every corner and defying an emperor means death. Locusta’s life changes forever when a young Emperor Nero requires her herbal expertise. And commands her to be his personal poisoner. Caught in an imperial web, Locusta must embrace her profession or die. Or is there another way out? History paints her as the first female serial killer. Or is she yet another maligned woman in history?

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THE EMPEROR’S ASSASSIN
I plodded down the hall but stopped before a marble ancestor in the atrium. “My betrothed is old,” I whispered into his stone ear. “And stern.” I looked toward my room. Pricilla waited for me and would be eager to hear all about Faustinus.
I patted the ancestor’s head and went to the kitchen instead. I passed three kitchen workers washing dishes, walked out the back door, and headed for the vineyards. Although it was night, the moon was large and bright, its light guiding me into the indigo rows that stretched over the hillside.
I grazed my fingertips across the silken leaves and inhaled the comforting scents. A brisk walk always helped me think, the exercise and grape-heavy air a balm to my spirit, the soft soil beneath my sandals cushioning my heavy heart. And Mother was here.
I liked to believe Mother’s spirit lived among the curled tendrils and cordons of purple clusters. She must! Because I could not bear to think she was imprisoned in Hades’ depths or submerged in the River Styx. I refused to consider the tormented hell described by Virgil in The Aeneid. Mother did not deserve such suffering. I also rejected the belief that she was carried off by genii into caves under the earth or that she drifted in a godless limbo after judgment by Minos. I preferred to believe Mother cavorted in the Elysian Fields, and by some mystical means, those fields joined with our earthly ones. Father scoffed at my notions of afterlife. Asked why I wanted her to wander in dark places like a lemure. He did not understand that it was not Mother’s ghost but her spirit who spoke to me.
“Mother,” I whispered into the vines.
Mother answered with a bird’s screech. Its piercing cry commiserated with me, matched the tightness in my chest. A childhood severed by a betrothal to a stern old man. A wrinkled, saggy-jowled, hairy-eared, arrogant man.
Mother spoke again. This time through a nightingale’s song. Find the good and honorable in the man, find a melody in his somber personality.
I snapped off a leaf, recalled Faustinus’s gossip about Messalina and how her wanton behavior was an insult to Emperor Claudius and Roman decorum. Her desire for adventure and romance neither controlled nor quenched.
Had Faustinus sent a veiled warning to me? I kicked at a pebble. I was no Messalina. I had no desire for drama and intrigue. The promiscuous behavior of Rome’s elite was far removed from these vineyards and herbs and sunshine. A kind husband, children, a good book, and a fertile garden were my only ambitions.
I shivered in the cool air and rubbed my bare arms. Thick clouds crossed the moon, the darkness transforming familiar boughs into sinister apparitions. Mother was gone, her spirit fled with Luna’s light.
I walked swiftly down the path, back toward the villa and Pricilla’s comforting arms. I was ready to tell her about Faustinus.
As I approached the collecting station with its grape-sweet tang thick in the air, a figure slunk out from the darkness.

Author Info
Autumn Bardot writes historical fiction and historical erotica. Her debut historical fiction is THE IMPALER'S WIFE. Her debut historical erotica is LEGENDS OF LUST. Autumn, a pen name, has worked as an educator for more than sixteen years. She teaches literature, writing, and the magic of words. She has a passion for history and a special affinity for the unsung courageous females that history has neglected. Or misunderstood. Autumn lives in Southern California with her husband and every-growing family. She wishes she was one-tenth as brave as the women she writes about. Historical Fiction ~ The Impaler's Wife ~ Dragon Lady ~ The Emperor's Assassin ( coming Oct 1, 2019 ) Historical Erotica ( Cleis Press) ~ Legends of Lust, Erotic Myths from around the World ~ Confessions of a Sheba Queen ( coming March 10, 2020)

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The Emperor's Assassin

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