ifteen years have passed since the events of New Pompeii, and Nick Houghton/Decimus Pullus (hereafter referred to as Nickimus for brevity's sake) is the only modern man still living a regular Pompeiian life. [...since everyone else was literally crucified.]

Nickimus is having some trouble in the outside world, as he's grown comfortable in a world of slavery, pedophilia, and recreational torture. (Not that he personally engages in the last two, but he's not exactly advocating for civil rights, either.)

He's pretty much banned from everywhere except Naples, where he occasionally goes in his role as ambassador from New Pompeii, which is essentially a colonial economy dependent on imports. Part of the plot occurs here, as scholars outside of New Pompeii are finding more evidence of NovusPart's meddling in time.

The rest of the story happens inside New Pompeii, where Nickimus is helping/hindering/helping/hindering/ad infinitum Calpurnia's efforts to restart the last remaining NovusPart time machine to rescue her husband from the wreckage of Herculaneum, and give New Pompeii more leverage and power to interact with the rest of the world.

I couldn't put this book down, but it was difficult to follow at times. I suppose that's expected from a book about the inherent paradoxes of time travel. We follow Nickimus through separate, seemingly concurrent plots that I can't place on a timeline, even a week after finishing.

I didn't anticipate the ending, and that's always a big win for me.

It's worth the read, and it's even worth buying.

Considering that I read at least a couple books a week, I simply can't afford to buy all of them, so off to the library I go... but this is on my bookshelf at home. 

arc received from the publisher for review