Lou Stanek, Ph.D., author of So You Want to Write a Novel
"Gripping...a hold-your-breath page-turner...Will appeal to a wide audience...A tale you won't forget!"
--This text refers to the
Hardcover
edition.
Rosario D'Agato, President of Association Dianae Lacus
"A compelling novel...Historically accurate...gives us all a new faith in the future of mankind...Bravissimo!"
--This text refers to the
Hardcover
edition.
Product Description
A haunting love story in a gripping war thriller. . . The Mirror of Diana, with its lightening pace and stunning plot twists, is the poignant story of Klaus and Rosanna's secret love, told against the backdrop of war-torn Italy.
From the Author
When I first set eyes on Lake Nemi, a cobalt-blue disc nestled in an extinct volcanic crater, I had the same reaction as Sir James Frazer, as immortalized in the opening lines of his classic, The Golden Bough: the feeling that no one who has seen this place can ever forget it. I found it beautiful, yes, but what I found even more remarkable about Lake Nemi - apart from the fact that American tourists have not yet discovered it - is its incredibly rich history, a history that stretches back 3000 years. I knew I had to write a book about it. But in my book, I wanted to show war-time Italy: what it was like to be an Italian living under German occupation, what it may have been like to have been a loyal German officer who did not support Nazism. Most of all, I wanted to imagine in the book an answer to the question of how the precious ancient ships brought up from the bottom of the lake could have been lost, all the while weaving into the story the rich and long history that surrounds them.
--This text refers to the
Hardcover
edition.
About the Author
A.R. Homer has been fascinated with World War II all his life. A native of Birmingham, England, he grew up hearing stories of privation and devastation, of ration cards and shortages, and of the bomb that almost destroyed his parents' house. As a history major at Oxford University, he developed a serious interest in World War II. Later, he moved to Normandy, France, to study the battles in which ordinary men determined the course of history. Currently, he and his wife live in New Jersey, where he is working on his next book, The Sobs of Autumn.
--This text refers to the
Hardcover
edition.
Excerpted from The Mirror of Diana: A Novel of War and Love by A. R. Homer. Copyright © 2004. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Prologue
On the night of May 31st 1944, as the German army was retreating, two ancient ships housed in a museum by a lake south of Rome went up in flames. No one knows how. No one knows why.
Everything about these ships was remarkable. They were huge floating palaces, lavishly appointed for the Roman emperor Caligula. He took his court upon them to the lakeside temple of Diana, then already centuries old, ferrying them across Lake Nemi, which the ancients called Speculum Dianae (Diana's Mirror). When Caligula was murdered in 41 A.D., the ships were sunk in the lake to expunge his memory.
In 1928, after centuries of dreaming of the treasure at the bottom of the lake, Italian engineers began to recover the ships. A triumphal ceremony, Mussolini attending, was held in 1940 to celebrate the vessels' release from twenty centuries in a muddy tomb.
But in only four years they were gone again, this time for good. Perhaps this is the story of their final destruction. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
On the night of May 31st 1944, as the German army was retreating, two ancient ships housed in a museum by a lake south of Rome went up in flames. No one knows how. No one knows why.
Everything about these ships was remarkable. They were huge floating palaces, lavishly appointed for the Roman emperor Caligula. He took his court upon them to the lakeside temple of Diana, then already centuries old, ferrying them across Lake Nemi, which the ancients called Speculum Dianae (Diana's Mirror). When Caligula was murdered in 41 A.D., the ships were sunk in the lake to expunge his memory.
In 1928, after centuries of dreaming of the treasure at the bottom of the lake, Italian engineers began to recover the ships. A triumphal ceremony, Mussolini attending, was held in 1940 to celebrate the vessels' release from twenty centuries in a muddy tomb.
But in only four years they were gone again, this time for good. Perhaps this is the story of their final destruction. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
