Skip to main content

Book Blast: Curses and Smoke: A Novel of Pompeii by Vicky Alvear Shecter

Curses and Smoke: A Novel of Pompeii
Author: Vicky Alvear Shecter 
Publication Date: May 27, 2014 
Publisher: Arthur A. Levine Books 
Formats: Hardcover, eBook
Genre: YA Historical
Pages: 336
Synopsis: When your world blows apart, what will you hold onto?

     TAG is a medical slave, doomed to spend his life healing his master's injured gladiators. But his warrior's heart yearns to fight in the gladiator ring himself and earn enough money to win his freedom.

     LUCIA is the daughter of Tag's owner, doomed by her father's greed to marry a much older Roman man. But she loves studying the natural world around her home in Pompeii, and lately she's been noticing some odd occurrences in the landscape: small lakes disappearing; a sulfurous smell in the air...

     When the two childhood friends reconnect, each with their own longings, they fall passionately in love. But as they plot their escape from the city, a patrician fighter reveals his own plans for them -- to Lucia's father, who imprisons Tag as punishment. Then an earthquake shakes Pompeii, in the first sign of the chaos to come. Will they be able to find each other again before the volcano destroys their whole world?


Buy the Book


About the Author

Vicky Alvear Shecter

Vicky Alvear Shecter is the author of the young adult novel, CLEOPATRA'S MOON (Arthur A. Levine Books/Scholastic, 2011), based on the life of Cleopatra's only daughter. She is also the author of two award-winning biographies for kids on Alexander the Great and Cleopatra. She is a docent at the Michael C. Carlos Museum of Antiquities at Emory University in Atlanta.


Author Links

Blog 


Book Blast Schedule

Monday, May 12

Bibliophilia, Please
bookworm2bookworm's Blog

 Tuesday, May 13

Broken Teepee
Passages to the Past
In the Hammock Blog

Wednesday, May 14


CelticLady's Reviews
The Most Happy Reader
I'd So Rather Be Reading
History From a Woman's Perspective

Thursday, May 15


Kinx's Book Nook
A Bibliotaph's Reviews
Historical Fiction Obsession

Friday, May 16


Booktalk & More
The Mad Reviewer
Book Lovers Paradise

Saturday, May 17


SOS Aloha
Reading the Ages
Kelsey's Book Corner

Sunday, May 18


Giant Squid Books
WTF Are You Reading? 

Monday, May 19


Caroline Wilson Writes
So Many Books, So Little Time 

Tuesday, May 20


West Metro Mommy
The True Book Addict
The Musings of ALMYBNENR

Wednesday, May 21


Book Nerd
Tower of Babel
Hardcover Feedback

Thursday, May 22


Paperback Princess
Bittersweet Enchantment

Friday, May 23


History Undressed
Historical Fiction Connection

Saturday, May 24


Literary Chanteuse
Just One More Chapter 

Sunday, May 25


A Dream within a Dream
The Little Reader Library

Monday, May 26


Pages of Comfort
Griperang's Bookmarks

Raizza's Book Blogging Adventure

Tuesday, May 27


Princess of Eboli
Ageless Pages Reviews
The Musings of a Book Junkie

Giveaway

To win a copy of Curses & Smoke or a $25 Amazon Gift Card please complete the Rafflecopter giveaway form below. Giveaway is open to US residents only. Giveaway ends at 11:59pm on May 27th. You must be 18 or older to enter. Winner will be chosen via Rafflecopter on May 28th and notified via email. Winner have 48 hours to claim prize or new winner is chosen. 



 photo 5d0bedea-42a1-42ca-9aac-7d15a9a3c0dc.png


Comments

  1. It could be fun. I visited Pompeii many years ago - not that I expect to recognize much, but one never knows. I can understand, though, how the ruins can give birth to exciting, possible stories.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thanks. It sounds like an interesting story.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Potiphar's Wife (The Egyptian Chronicles #1) by Mesu Andrews: A Book Review

  Potiphar’s Wife (The Egyptian Chronicles #1) Author: Mesu Andrews Genre: Historical Fiction, Christian, Biblical Fiction Publisher: WaterBrook Release Date: May 24, 2022 Pages: 453 Source: Netgalley/Publisher in exchange for an honest review. Synopsis: One of the Bible’s most notorious women longs for a love she cannot have in this captivating novel from the award-winning author of Isaiah’s Legacy .       Before she is Potiphar’s wife, Zuleika is the daughter of a king and the wife of a prince. She rules the isle of Crete alongside her mother in the absence of their seafaring husbands. But when tragedy nearly destroys Crete, Zuleika must sacrifice her future to save the Minoan people she loves.       Zuleika’s father believes his robust trade with Egypt will ensure Pharaoh’s obligation to marry his daughter, including a bride price hefty enough to save Crete. But Pharaoh refuses and gives her instead to Potiphar, the captain...

The Rose Code by Kate Quinn: A Book Review

The Rose Code Author: Kate Quinn Genre: Historical Fiction Publisher: Harper Collins Release Date: 2021 Pages: 635 Source: Netgalley/Publisher in exchange for an honest review. Synopsis: 1940, Bletchley Park, Buckinghamshire.        Three very different women are recruited to the mysterious Bletchley Park, where the best minds in Britain train to break German military codes.       Vivacious debutante Osla has the dashing Prince Philip of Greece sending her roses – but she burns to prove herself as more than a society girl, working to translate decoded enemy secrets. Self-made Mab masters the legendary codebreaking machines as she conceals old wounds and the poverty of her East-End London upbringing. And shy local girl Beth is the outsider who trains as one of the Park’s few female cryptanalysts.       1947, London.        Seven years after they first meet, on the eve of the roya...

The Life and Times of Hannah Crafts: The True Story of The Bondwoman's Narrative by Gregg Hecimovich: A Book Review

  The Life and Times of Hannah Crafts: The True Story of the Bondwoman’s Narrative Author: Gregg Hecimovich Genre: History, Nonfiction, Biography  Publisher: Ecco Release Date: 2023 Pages: 430 Source: Netgalley/Publisher in exchange for an honest review. Synopsis: A groundbreaking study of the first Black female novelist and her life as an enslaved woman, from the biographer who solved the mystery of her identity, with a foreword by Henry Louis Gates Jr.       In 1857, a woman escaped enslavement on a North Carolina plantation and fled to a farm in New York. In hiding, she worked on a manuscript that would make her famous long after her death. The novel, The Bondwoman’s Narrative, was first published in 2002 to great acclaim, but the author’s identity remained unknown. Over a decade later, Professor Gregg Hecimovich unraveled the mystery of the author’s name and, in The Life and Times of Hannah Crafts, hefinally tells her story.   ...