An archeologist in Rome is tasked with saving relics from Catholic churches, but also has a secret assignment from the Vatican, which is to explore on a hunch that Alexander the Great is buried in a church in Rome.
During an evening dig/reconnaissance mission, there is an earthquake and the archeologist is trapped underground in a church and the tomb of a former Pope is jostled open by the earthquake, and the diary of Lucrezia Borgia was buried with that Pope.
The archeologist reads the diary while trapped underground, and that is when the book reads as the diary. It's a lesson in history, and also quite a bit of theology.
Overall I enjoyed this book and do think it will be most appealing to those who practice a Christian faith.
Thank you NetGalley and the publisher for access to this eARC.

Lucretia Borgia has long fascinated me. She appears during the Renaissance, that glorious age for Italy, and when her father was Pope and her brother, Cesare, was a force to be reckoned with. I first became acquainted with her in Samuel Shellabarger’s The Prince of Foxes and found her later in Sarah Bradford’s biography, the first one published in 60 years. So when I saw this book I knew I had to read it.

This book is a fine and accurate piece of historical fiction. Lucretia deserves a story that doesn’t malign her but represents her in her flawed magnificence. She was a product of her times - much looser and less tame than ours - and given how she was chattel to the dynastic desires of her father, her finding love outside her marriages wasn’t surprising. But she was not a vicious chatelaine or poisoner as some would make her be. I think she got bad press because of her father and brother mostly.

I liked how the story was told - a story within a story. An archeologist is given permission by the Vatican to look for the tomb of Alexander the Great in the church of Santa Maria sopra Minerva (one of my favorite churches in Rome - I love it when books are set in places I’ve visited) and discovers Lucretia’s diary when a cave in occurs and he’s trapped in a tomb and reads her story. The diary tone is serious and somber helping to convey a more serious Lucretia making her believable (events in it are accurate). This is definitely a character driven novel.

I want to thank NetGalley and Histria Books for graciously allowing me to read this ARC.