No one in this city has believed in me for two thousand years. I'm unknown and unloved. And I'm very, very ill.' He sighed, and the sound chilled her blood. `Give me your hand.'

Dionysus, god of wine and divine ecstasy, is reborn in modern Rome. He doesn't understand how or why he's come to be here - a pagan god in a city where he has no believers. But when he meets fifteen-year-old Grace during a chance encounter in the Ghetto, he realises he has found his first new follower.

This is the beginning of Grace's secret life, as she and her friends overcome scepticism and fear to become his worshippers, drinking his wine and taking part in bacchanals across the city. As the melancholy god lives out his exile, his teenage followers find they have everything to lose. And after the first bloodshed, they know that there's no turning back...