Warrior or Wife (Mills & Boon Historical) (Harlequin Historical, #837)

by Lyn Randal

In the heat and dust of the Roman arena, a woman stands alone. The crowd cheers for Leda, the famed gladiatrix. Watching is the man who loved and then left her - Marcus Flavius Donatus.Leda used to be Lelia, beloved daughter of a Roman senator. Exiled from the riches of her birth, she sold herself into gladiatorial slavery. Donatus is determined to right the wrong he did her and reclaim his bride!New Lelia faces the ultimate choice - independence and the danger of the arena, or an uncertain future with the man she once adored...'From the bloodlust of the gladiatorial arena to the silken sheets of a Roman senator's couch, Lyn Randal's story weaves a powerful and ancient magic.' - International bestselling author Gayle Wilson.

• ISBN10: 0373294379
• ISBN13: 9780373294374
• Publish Date: 30 January 2007
• Publish Status: Out of Stock
• Publish Country: CA
• Imprint: Harlequin Special Releases
• Edition: Original ed.
• Format: Paperback (US Mass Market)
• Pages: 304
• Language: English

Reviews

[wyvernfriend]

Leda is a gladiatrix, before she became a gladiatrix she was the daughter of a Roman Senator who fell in love with Marcus Flavius Donatus. That love led he to be exiled and disowned. When Marcus returns to take up his role as senator after his father's death he discovers her and decides that she's going to marry him.

Leda is now used to a certain amount of freedom and she's hiding quite a big secret. Marcus is also carrying around some serious baggage which needs resolving.

Now it's not a bad read but as a person who has read too much (and done a degree) in Classical Civilization there were parts that just didn't work. I'm very sorry but there is pretty much no way that the senator having Christian leanings wouldn't be a bigger scandal that it was made to be, and pretty much no way that some scions of the upper classes would associate themselves with the, then, religion of the slave and lowest classes. There were also a few other points that just didn't sit right with me, from a historians point of view, that lost it rating points. Still it was quite readable and the conflict and love between the characters quite believable.