Flavia Gemina is brilliant at finding things, so it's natural for her to solve mysteries. The daughter of a ship's captain living in Ostia, the port of Rome, in AD79, she acquires a gang of three friends who help her. There is Jonathan, the Jewish boy (and secretly a Christian) who has just moved in next door; Nubia, the African slave girl Flavia's father buys to save her from a terrible fate; and Lupus, a ragged homeless boy who is mysteriously mute. Together they work out who severed the heads of the watchdogs that guard people's homes, and why he did it. Caroline Lawrence, a first-time writer, is a terrific storyteller who creates a wonderfully vivid picture of daily life in the colourful, bustling port of Ostia while never labouring the historical detail. THE THIEVES OF OSTIA is first and foremost a whodunnit, with lots of excitement and plot twists.

First in a brand new historical adventure series from million copy selling Caroline Lawrence, set in Roman Britain during the reign of the evil Emperor Domitian. The year is AD 94. The place is Roman Britain. Three siblings arrive in Londinium on a ship from Rome. Pursued by three henchmen working for the evil Emperor, they are hoping to find refuge. Meanwhile, a mysterious Jewish boy has also disembarked, on a quest of his own. Strangers in a strange land, they gratefully team up with a British girl who will be their guide in this new world. But things do not turn out quite as they hoped...Brand new Roman series from the bestselling author of THE ROMAN MYSTERIES, perfect for children studying at Key Stage 2.

"This beautiful work of historical fiction was inspired by the diary of an actual 18th-century Roman Jewish girl, imprisoned by the Catholic Church because someone with a grudge offered her to the Church. Anything But Yes is the true story of a young woman's struggle to defend her identity in the face of relentless attempts to destroy it. In 1749, 18-year-old Anna del Monte was seized at gunpoint from her home in Rome's Jewish ghetto and thrown into a convent cell at the Casa dei Convertiti, the house of converts. With no access to the outside world, she withstood isolation, sleep deprivation, endless lectures, and threats and promises. If Anna were to utter the simple word "yes," she would risk forced baptism, which meant never returning to her home and losing contact with any Jew-including her own family-for the rest of her life. Even in Italy today, few people know the full story of Rome's Jewish ghetto, the abduction of Jews, or the popes who were intent on forcibly converting every non-Catholic living in the long shadow of the Vatican. Young girls and small children were the primary targets of these forced conversions, for they were most vulnerable. But Anna del Monte was different. She was strong, brilliant, and educated, and wrote a diary of her experiences. Her diary became lost for more than 200 years but was rediscovered in Israel in 1989. Anything But Yes is based on Anna's diary and Joie Davidow's extensive research on life in the 18th-century Roman Jewish ghetto and its personalities, traditions, foods, and dialect"--