Welcome to the Riptide Publishing / Lisa Henry blog tour for He Is Worthy, part of the Warriors of Rome collection now available. The collection is available for pre-order here, as a collection or individually, and all pre-orders enter you in a drawing to win a Nook Simple Touch.

Every comment on this blog tour enters you in the draw for a copy of my two previous eBooks—Tribute and The Island—and a $10 Riptide Publishing credit. Entries close at midnight, U.S. Eastern time, on November 18, and winners will be announced the next day. The contest is NOT restricted to U.S. entries.

Thanks for hosting me today on Joyfully Jay. It’s nice here. I like your bird.

Here is some fun (and gross) stuff you might not know about Ancient Rome:

  • Ancient Rome had over a million people living in it. A million. There is no other city in the ancient world that can hold a torch to that. It took until the 19th Century for any another city — London — to break the million mark. And the Romans did it all without having an Industrial Revolution first.
  • Many Roman houses had central heating and running water and electricity. Sorry, got carried away there. But wouldn’t that be awesome? I could start a new genre here. Move over Steampunk, I give you Electrome! (I was going to go Electroman, but that sounds like a lame superhero.)
  • In Ancient Rome, there are fast food joints all over the place. They’re called thermopolia, and you can either eat in or takeaway. You don’t get a toy with your McHappius Meal though.
  • There is graffiti everywhere. Some of it is advertising. A lot of it is political — there’s always an election coming up for something. And an awful lot of it is obscene. So people haven’t really changed much.
  • The Ancient Romans didn’t have toilet paper. They had sponges on sticks. TMI?  It gets worse: they shared them.
  • If you wanted to put a bet on the chariot races, you purchased a small ivory betting chip. If your charioteer didn’t crash into the wall and kill himself, and actually won the race, you then returned and exchanged your chip for your winnings. Just like a modern betting shop. Except for that part about going back and collecting your winnings. I’ve never done that.
  • Yes, the Ancient Romans had birth control. And no, after that thing about toilet paper you probably don’t want to know much about it. Let’s just say it was the woman’s responsibility, and it involved a barrier of wax. I’m guessing it was a real mood-killer as well.
  • Hey, want to know how to remove that stubborn stain from your toga? Or get your slave to do it? By bleaching it in urine, obviously. Want to know how to get the smell of stale urine out of your clean toga? History does not relate.

And here is some stuff you might not know (or even care to know) about me:

I live in North Queensland, Australia. At the time of writing, it’s 8 pm at night and 25 degrees Celsius. Google tells me that’s 77 degrees Fahrenheit. Summer seriously sucks here. By January it will be like a furnace. Every year I think I should move south. Then I remember that I have a gazillion pets, a job, a mortgage, and a partner who might not appreciate it if he comes home from a stint working in the mines to discover I’ve moved without telling him.

Whenever I say “working in the mines” I imagine my partner with a pickaxe and a canary in a cage. Whenever I tell him this, he looks at me like he’s thinking of breaking up with me. Then I can only assume he remembers how awesome I am and how lucky he is.

I work in a civilian job in a police station. Once, when I asked if I could have a go with some handcuffs, I accidentally handcuffed myself. To a chair. It is surprisingly easy to do, and police issue handcuffs are not at all like the handcuffs you get in adult shops. Of which, in case my mother’s reading this, I have absolutely no knowledge.

Nope, none at all.


Bio

Lisa lives in tropical North Queensland, Australia. She doesn’t know why, because she hates the heat, but she suspects she’s too lazy to move. She spends half her time slaving away as a government minion, and the other half plotting her escape.

She attended university at sixteen, not because she was a child prodigy or anything, but because of a mix-up between international school systems early in life. She studied History and English, neither of them very thoroughly.

She shares her house a long-suffering partner, too many cats, a dog, a green tree frog that swims in the toilet, and as many possums as can break in every night. This is not how she imagined life as a grown-up.

Lisa blogs over here. She is also on Twitter (whenever she remembers) as @LisaHenryOnline. She spends more time on Goodreads than on housework.


Blurb

Rome, 68 A.D. Novius Senna is one of the most feared men in Rome. He’s part of the emperor’s inner circle at a time when being Nero’s friend is almost as dangerous as being his enemy. Senna knows that better men than he have been sacrificed to Nero’s madness—he’s the one who tells them to fall on their swords. He hates what he’s become to keep his family safe. He hates Nero more.

Aenor is a newly-enslaved Bructeri trader, brutalized and humiliated for Nero’s entertainment. He’s homesick and frightened, but not entirely cowed. He’s also exactly what Senna has been looking for: a slave strong enough to help him assassinate Nero.

It’s suicide, but it’s worth it. Senna yearns to rid Rome of a tyrant, and nothing short of death will bring him peace for his crimes. Aenor hungers for revenge, and dying is his only escape from Rome’s tyranny. They have nothing left to lose, except the one thing they never expected to find—each other.

You can buy He Is Worthy or read an excerpt here.


Giveaway

Don’t forget to leave a comment to enter to win a copy of Tribute and The Island by Lisa Henry, along with a $10 Riptide Publishing credit.  Entries close at midnight, U.S. Eastern time, on November 18, and winners will be announced the next day. The contest is NOT restricted to U.S. entries.