In this excellent novel, a woman of the 21st Century is transported for purposes of scientific and historical research to the Italy of the Emperor Nero's time.  The protagonist, Miranda, is a young scholar who expects to remain in the past a short time, and then return.  But destiny has other plans, and she is quickly caught in the local gears, captured, and sold into slavery to a wealthy household in the city of Pompeii.  Thus begins an excellent story.  The author's description and portrayal of life in Roman Pompeii is startlingly realistic.  I enjoy reading novels about life in Ancient Rome, and I cannot remember a single one that created a background and picture of life there as realistic and dazzling as this novel creates.  If all that were not enough, this novel features a solid storyline and some excellent characterizations.