Some of you may have noticed that The Invention of Greek Mythology has taken a sabbatical from Substack for the last several months. I have still been writing, however, and TIGM is still very much a live project.
But something new’s afoot.
I am a novelist as well as a public scholar, and I have had a novel project on the docket since 2019 that finally took flight last summer thanks to the entreaties of a dedicated fan.
The book is called Roman Magic, and is available as an e-book and in paper on Amazon.
Here is the blurb:
When Ava Petropoulos sees what she thinks is the she-wolf of ancient Rome in an airport animal carrier, the weirdness of her summer trip to Italy is just beginning. Ava's been studying the Latin language and the ancient Romans since kindergarten, and she's on her way to experience those Romans close up. But little does she know that the Romans have chosen her. With her Latin quiz bowl partners Raji Weatherspoon and Austinius Zhu, Ava must stop the Magma Magister--her own Latin teacher?--from making the ancient volcano of Vesuvius erupt, burying not only the treasured ruins of Pompeii but also millions of citizens in the modern Italian city of Naples. And only her discovery of Latin-powered Roman magic--along with the she-wolf of Rome--can show the way.
RM has affinities with Rick Riordan’s Percy Jackson empire. It is a YA fantasy book chock-full of mythology, with the readership pitched to older tweens and younger teens.
But it is also completely different from Percy, because of the magic system.
J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter has spells of one or two words in Latin (I always had a soft spot for Wingardium Leviosa, which isn’t really Latin at all), but RM goes full geek. The system is based on Latin noun and adjective declensions, and your spell won’t work unless you get the grammar right.
Which is why the tagline of the book is “The grammar is the glamor.”
RM is also a sequel to a trilogy of novels I’ve previously published. While RM takes place in the present day, the Master Mage of Rome series is set around 500 BCE, when the Romans were a tiny city state dominated by their neighbors, the Etruscans.
So in all four books there is a heavy emphasis on Etruscan mythology, a fascinating complex of tales and divinities whose exact nature is not known (because the language is not completely deciphered yet!).
If you or a younger friend of yours is interested in getting started with the series, I’d advise Roman Magic first. The first book of the trilogy, The Mirror and the Mage, has a lot of technical stuff about how the magic system works, and it uses archaic Roman spelling (because in 500 BCE, the Romans were just getting started writing their language). The heroes of RM are modern teens who are good at Latin and find out how to use the magic in a more organic way.
Stay tuned for more about Roman Magic in the coming weeks. I tend to sell most of my books at student Latin conventions, but now and then I will have promotions online. And if you’re waiting for more about The Invention of Greek Mythology, that’s on its way.
And as always, thanks for reading.