The Last Ember by Daniel Levin

5 stars
R- 1.5

This book was awesome.

Part legal-ish thriller, mostly archaeology gone wild.  :)

I have to confess, though, I am SUCH a nerd.  Through all of the tense thriller-type confrontations I was thinking, come on, get back to the Josephus quotes!  Are they going to find the artifact?!  What will happen to it?!?!  LOL.  Nevermind that the bad guy had a gun to Emili's head.  Minor details.

I also have to confess, I actually own a copy of The Complete Works of Josephus..... and I took Roman History for fun in college.  Yeah, for fun.  A 200 or 300 level course that didn't count for a darn thing, but I loved it.

From that class, I learned that the "Colosseum" is a totally inaccurate name.  As a result I was SO glad when the main character mentioned that!!  I was going to be irritated the whole book otherwise.  (The Colosseum wasn't referred to as such until loooooong after it was built.  If I remember right it's because of the Colossus statue nearby.  The proper name would be the Flavian Amphitheater.  Just so you know.)

So now, after reading this, I think it's time to break out Josephus again.  The theory that he may not have been a traitor after all is fascinating.  Got me all curious.  :)

Bottom line is, I loved it.

Counts for the Reader's Choice and the Support Your Local Library challenges.