Well behaved women seldom make history.
Fulvia, the wife of Marc Antony, is the opposite of a well-behaved woman. As Rome struggles to find a new leader following the death of Caesar, Fulvia, the twice-widowed businesswoman, and mother of four, is left alone to keep her family safe. What follows is a tale for the ages. But the coins minted in her image, the troops she commanded, and Cicero’s slanderous speeches are just one side of the story. In the end, she will have to choose between a disloyal and reckless husband and the servant who has stood by her through it all.
Her Side of the Coin is a Historical Romance that follows Fulvia on her journey, from jilted wife and scorned businesswoman, to a defiant leader who gambles everything for the nation she loves.
Lighter than Steven Saylor’s RomaSeries but with the heart of Kate Quinn’s Daughters of Rome, Her Side of the Coin is an intimate journey through the years that shaped Rome and nearly destroyed all that Fulvia held dear.
My plan is to make Fulvia’s story the first of many books about strong, historical, but often overlooked women.
Update, Summer 2020: While this manuscript is complete, I have set it aside for now to focus on cozy mysteries.
Why Write This Story?
Fulvia is a woman who has been maligned in history for over 2,000 years. Portrayed by upper-class men writing the history of Rome as a greedy harridan, a revised look at this woman suggests that she was a woman fighting for her children in the cut-throat world of Rome. Her now-famous husband, Marc Antony, was never better than when he was working with Fulvia. Smart and savvy, she helped guide him to almost be the ruler of the empire had he not fallen for the magnetic Cleopatra. Fulvia is a woman who broke the “rules” of how women should conduct themselves. No historical fiction novel has yet been published about this bold and intelligent woman.
The quote at the top of this page is attributed to a Harvard history professor Laura Thatcher Urlich in 1976.