I, Claudia

Claudia Seferius #1

by Marilyn Todd

First in the Claudia Seferius mystery series, set in 13 B. C. and available for the first time in ebook format!

Claudia Seferius has successfully flattered her way into marriage with a wealthy Roman wine merchant. But when her secret gambling debts spiral, she hits on another resourceful way to make money - offering her “personal services” to high-ranking Roman Citizens.

Unfortunately her clients are now turning up dead - the victims of a sadistic serial killer.

When Marcus Cornelius Orbilio, the handsome investigating officer, starts digging deep for clues, Claudia realizes she must track down the murderer herself - before her husband discovers what she's been up to.

CRITICAL ACCLAIM FOR I, CLAUDIA:

‘A timeless heroine for today—you’ll be hooked.’ Company

‘The Roman detail is deft, the pace as fast as a champion gladiator, and the heroine, Claudia, an arrogant superbitch who keeps us all on the edge where she loves to live.’ Sunday Express

‘A wonderful fictional creation—a bawdy superbitch with a talent for sleuthing…an enormous triumph.’ Ms London

‘An endearing adventuress who regards mortal danger as just another bawdy challenge.’ She

‘If you’re looking for a romp through the streets of Rome in 13 BC then this is the book to buy!’Books Magazine

‘Terrific read…It is written in a contemporary, fast style, and is a thoroughly entertaining mystery romp.’ The Bookseller

Genres: Historical Fiction, Mystery, Historical Mystery, Historical, Fiction, Crime, Roman

336 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1995

About the author

MARILYN TODD lives with her husband on a French hilltop, surrounded by vineyards, châteaux and vines. As well as sixteen critically acclaimed historical thrillers, she's a prolific writer of short stories, most of which are crime, but range from commercial women's fiction to comic fantasy and all points in between. When she isn't killing people, Marilyn enjoys cooking. Which is pretty much the same thing.

Reviews

[Clemens Schoonderwoert · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read this book in 2012, and its the 1st volume of the "Claudia Seferius" Roman mystery series, from the author, Marilyn Todd.

The year is 13 BC, Rome, and we find our main protagonist and ex-prostitute, Claudia Seferius, now in marriage with an old man who's a wine merchant.

Getting bored and losing money by gambling, she decides to make money by offering "personal services" to rich and high-ranking Romans.

All of a sudden all her clients are starting to end up dead, and she's forced to get help from an investigator called, Marcus Cornelius Orbilio, but his attentions towards Claudia are making her uncomfortable somehow.

In this love/hate situation between Claudia and Marcus, Claudia see only one way to solve this problem and that's to track down this killer on her own.

What is to follow is a Roman mystery with humor and wit, in which in the end Claudia, with in the background always the active Marcus in attendance, will after some twists and turns, followed with an excited plot, solve this mystery in a very entertaining manner.

Very much recommended, for this is a very likeable start of this Roman mystery series, and that's why I like to call this first outing: "A Satisfying Claudia Seferius Begin"!

[Andrea · Rating 1 out of 5]

At various points reading this I found myself wondering why I was struggling on...but I did want to give it a fair chance and wanted to find out who the killer was. Sadly, my tenacity did NOT pay off. I am not one of those people that needs books full of lovely and likable people, but it's hard to keep reading a book where I actively despise nearly everyone. I hated the main character, Claudia, and was just over it as she lied, connived, endangered others, and generally slithered her way from one self-absorbed, odious act to the next. UGH. I was seriously rooting for her to be killed. I can't say I liked the detective Orbilio any more. He seemed unable to think with the head on top of his shoulders and I suffered through at least eight wet-dream level daydreams since he couldn't manage to have an entire conversation with Claudia without a commotion in his toga. I just - no. I hate all these people and my only sadness is that every single person in this fictional Rome wasn't dead and city reduced to ashes by the end of the book.

[Kimberly · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love a good mystery, and I love a good historical novel but I love it even more when the two come together which is why I was so excited to have the opportunity to read and review I, Claudia by Marilyn Todd. Reading books set in the ancient world is one of my favourite things to do especially when they're both witty and require a bit of brain power to read.

I, Claudia is the first novel in Marilyn Todd's Claudia Seferius series of historical mysteries, and am I ever glad I got the chance to read it since it was only released in E-book format this past May. Right away I was sucked into the story that Todd wrote.

Claudia Seferius is not your cuddly housewife, she is not soft nor kind. She's actually quite bitchy, which would usually irritate the hell out of me but in this case I loved it! It was so refreshing to read about a character who wasn't all nicey-nice. I liked her fire and how riled up she would get but I mostly loved her snarky attitude. She was conniving and plotting and I thought that those were really rare qualities to come across in a main character in a mystery novel where she herself is solving the crimes.

I loved the way the novel was laid out. It was fast paced, full of cynicism, wit and intrigue and I found it completely and utterly addictive. Besides our heroine Claudia we were introduced to a wide cast of characters that had both good and bad qualities and many of them along with the murderer took some time to figure out just who was who in terms of the series of murders that Claudia and Marcus Orbilio are trying together (very reluctantly I might add).

The dynamic between Claudia and Marcus was intriguing, as Claudia is a married woman and Orbilio an officer of the law and he isn't entirely too sure about Claudia's claims of innocence or about who she says she is. Whilst Claudia isn't so sure that the crimes are the real motivation behind Orbilio's interest in her, but boy oh boy is there chemistry.

I loved the way that Todd infused the perfect amount of mystery, and intrigue into her novel while balancing it with a historical atmosphere that I thought was both rich and authentic. Finding out who the murder was in the end really caught me off guard because I didn't see it coming at all, and I loved that Todd kept me guessing right up until the very end.

Overall, I found I, Claudia to be a really great read and I'm most definitely looking forward to reading the other books in the Claudia Seferius mystery series in the near future depending on whether or not I can get my hands on them.

I would recommend I, Claudia to fans of historical mysteries with a strong female lead who isn't your average heroine, set in a time and place that is unique and well written and for those who enjoy reading mysteries that will keep them guessing the identity of the murderer right up until the very end.

*I received a free copy of this book in exchange for my free and honest review. All thoughts and opinions expressed herein are 100% my own.

[Sean · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fun but not deep. The main character is quite fun because of her flaws.

While overall, the author does a good job with the language, I have no problem with modern swears, I did find the use of "psychopath" and "psycho" jarringly out of place. Mad, bloodthristy or cursed would all have worked as well and fit in so much better.

[Andrew · Rating 2 out of 5]

I've read a few books in the genre of historical detective fiction, and in the sub-category of ancient Roman mysteries Lindsey Davis's books rule (in my opinion) supreme. Her Falco and Flavia novels effectively mix the gumshoe pulp fiction stereotypes with literate history and a range of personable characters, thus forming a considerable corpus of good reads. They are good yarns that have that special mix of scholarship & anachronistic fun, giving the reader the best of both worlds.

Sadly, Marilyn Todd appears to be far below Davis's standards, and whilst I will continue to read her Claudia series, ''I Claudia' is a most inauspicious start. Todd has not met the standards of those like Davis, nor Wishart nor Saylor, and to be blunt in comes down to her crude prose.

I don't mean crude in terms of sexual explicitness; no, Todd write crudely, simplistically, without much grace or charm. Todd rarely escapes her limited capabilities, whether that be in terms of plot, characterisation or historical 'truthfulness'. There is a kernel of a good idea herein; a feminist anti-hero with street smarts, moving through the dark underworld of ancient Roman society. However Todd fails to make more of Claudia, more of her setting, more of her narrative because she can't go to the next levels of fictional imagination and complexity.

Perhaps the major problem with the book, or at least the one that really annoyed me, was that her anti-heroine Claudia is all surface, too flat and one dimensional. There should be more humanity to her character but almost always Todd just throws in line after line of cynicism and ego. Some may claim this is a good thing, to see a strong female character not conforming to accepted norms (whether they be what the reader wants or the characters in the novel project). However one can still develop a strong female character who also engages with the reader and interacts with her fellow characters in ways that one can appreciate, enjoy, empathise with. Helena Justina in the Falco novels by Lindsay Davis is just such an example. Instead, Todd's Claudia is all sour vinegar, dislikeable, solitary. What should be the key relationship in the book, her duelling with the investigator Orbilio, becomes just passage after passage of nastiness. And this repulsion from her of him is mirrored by his crude lust for her.

I could talk more of how non-historical the book is, how little I enjoyed it from other perspectives. Bottom line is this is not a good book and Todd needs to do better with her prose and her characters. Hopefully this happens in the next book in the Claudia series.

[Doug Lewars · Rating 3 out of 5]

*** Possible Spoilers ***

It's very seldom that I mark a book DNF but I came close with this one. The writing wasn't bad. The plot was adequate. The pacing could have used some work but it wasn't really terrible. The characters were ... just plain awful. The protagonist was supposed to be a STRONG woman. Instead she came across somewhere between whiny and hysterical. Her most annoying failing was that she was totally reactive. She didn't pause for one second to simply think. This was a mystery. As the story opens, Claudia finds one of her clients very much deceased. This is awkward because the nature of the business she is running must be kept secret from her husband. Therefore she feels compelled to find the murderer. Up to there things are fine. So what does she do? Absolutely nothing. She reminded me of a ball in an arcade game bouncing from place to place as she digs herself ever deeper into a hole. Then when she runs into difficulty she simply bulldozes her way through. By the half way point I was ready to pack it in but I tend to be stubborn and kept on reading just to see if the book would improve. It did. At about the 80% mark things improved. Our heroine started to think and act like a rational human being. She stopped with the stupid games and started making progress. The remainder of the book was a page-turner.

So I cannot say I hated this novel. On the other hand, I can't say that slogging through the 80% for the final 20% was time well spent. This book is number one in a series and I doubt I'll be reading beyond it.

[Laura · Rating 2 out of 5]

She’s too much of an anti-hero for me

[Alison C · Rating 2 out of 5]

Claudia Seferius, wife of a wealthy wine seller, has a gambling problem, and as a consequence owes a lot of money to a rather shady money-lender. To pay off her debts, she takes on a discreet clientele: wealthy and upper-class Roman men whose sexual proclivities tend toward bondage, dominance and the like. But somebody apparently knows who her clients are, because they keep turning up dead, with their eyes gouged out. Patrician Marcus Cornelius Orbilio, noble but relatively poor, is trying his hand as a detective, and he is determined to discover what Claudia knows, and how, before any more people have to die…. I quite liked a handful of short stories about Claudia that I’ve read over the years, so finally decided to give this series a try, but unfortunately I was not impressed. For starters, Claudia is an odious person, as is pretty much everybody in the book; I don’t insist on *liking* characters in books that I read, but I need to at least not hate every single one of them! The story is mostly told from Claudia’s point of view and perhaps in the early 1990s, when this was first published, the idea of writing a historical novel using modern vernacular (in this case, the cockney version of Latin - in translation of course) was very novel and new, but some 30 years later it’s fairly normal and feels a bit grating here. I think perhaps I can only stomach this character in short-story bursts, rather than at full length; definitely not for me.

[L. · Rating 1 out of 5]

When you mix two genres together, there's a fine line you must walk. Er, write. Whatever. In this case you have to have the right amount of historical fiction along with the thrills of a crime drama. I never once thought I was back in Ancient Rome. Instead, I felt more like it was 1950's L.A. where togas just happened to be all the rage and for some reason everyone spoke with a cockney accent. What are you doing, Marilyn?

So the historical part wasn't working, how about the murder mystery? The story starts off with a grisly discovery and then for the next 60% of the ebook we get a set-up of Claudia Seferius' crazy life: some of her backstory, her run-ins with her bookie who wants his money, her unbearable in-laws, as well as detective Marcus Cornelius Orbilio who has immediately fallen in love with Claudia. The murders are barely remembered so when both Claudia and Orbilio claim they're close to cracking the case I'm like, "How?" Orbilio has been too busy sniffing around Claudia to do any police work, and Claudia's been doing everything under the sun but investigating. How can they be close to discovering who the murderer is?!

There are several books in this series so someone out there is enjoying this mess. Don't let me stop you.

[Miriel68 · Rating 1 out of 5]

You know these books you keep reading because you wonder if they can get even more absurd than in the beginning? Well, this is one of them. The protagonist is a bitch and it could be a funny and interesting concept, but only if she had some redeeming qualities. Alas, she has none. She is a self-absorbed, egocentric, heartless cow, who charmed her way into a respectable, comfortable life and, guess what? is so bored that becomes a compulsive gambler and puts herself into dire straits. Hardly someone to sympathize with. But what is even worse, while we are told Claudia is shrewd and intelligent, she comes out as supremely stupid. She is abrasive and offensive all the time, making unnecessary enemies, and treats her slaves like shit, even if she needs to rely on their discretion; when accused of something she does not have a better idea than simply denying everything. She declares that she will discover the murderer if only to protect her reputation, but she does nothing to do it. There are two separate criminal subplots but only one is remotely interesting, the main one, with the maniac serial killer, is plainly ridiculous. And don't start me on the style and language!

[Sara G · Rating 3 out of 5]

This one is an odd mix of modern characterizations, slang, and sensibilities with the ancient Roman world. The author clearly knows her Roman history but everyone involved, especially our main character, could be found on the modern streets of London.

Claudia is a wealthy man's wife with a checkered history, and has gotten herself into a bit of trouble with gambling debts. Being a bit of a tart anyway, she works as a sort of escort in order to earn money to pay off the debts. When men that she is "escorting" turn up murdered with their eyes cut out, she becomes a bit concerned. When a patrician investigator starts looking into who she really is, she REALLY becomes concerned.

I can't say that I loved it or hated it. I enjoyed the mystery, but the anachronisms were pretty jarring. I'll probably read the second one and see if I have the same impression before giving up on this series.

[DrMcFly · Rating 3 out of 5]

La verdad es que ha sido divertido. Y me gusta que la protagonista sea de todo menos una heroína. Además, toda la tensión con Marco está muy bien.

La cuestión es que es una lectura ligera, con muchos chascarrillos y momentos que sobran un pelín. Pero como lectura ligera, está muy bien. En particular para aquellos que disfrutamos de la antigua Roma y de un buen misterio de asesinatos (bueno, quizá un par de buenos misterios).

Igual hasta me animo y me leo alguno de los otros 12 libros de la colección.

[claudepalerm · Rating 1 out of 5]

Initially caught my eye due to the title, and after reading the summary I was hoping for a historical mystery series similar to the Falco series by Lindsay Davis.

I was, however, disappointed. The story and characters could have easily been found in modern-day England, and the excessive use of modern slang was just too much for me.

[Alien · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 / 5
When I look around here at goodread.com, I come to the impression that I am the only male being that ever read this book. Amazing.

[Nancy · Rating 2 out of 5]

I agree with other reviewers who did not like the main character and found the language too mixed in modern day for the ancient world. I just couldn't get into this. Maybe you will.

[Jeff J. · Rating 5 out of 5]

First book in the Claudia Seferius mystery series about an ambitious concubine in Ancient Rome.

[ClareElena · Rating 5 out of 5]

I first read this series when I was about 14, and totally fell in love - I have re-read it so many times since then. I'm a big fan of all things Ancient Rome, and while I think that helps - as it makes details throughout the story more interesting, it's certainly not a requirement for enjoying this book; Claudia is enough!

Claudia is a sassy, fierce and seductive young woman who has picked herself up from her rough roots to marry a rich older wine merchant - and though she's landed on her feet, she can't help but get herself into mischief. Claudia is a shameless thrill-seeker, and starts to work as a high-class escort, until someone starts killing off her clients...

Enter Marcus Cornelius Orbilio, a gorgeous, aristocratic investigator. Claudia decides she's going to have to solve these crimes before her husband finds out.

The mystery is interesting, and keeps you guessing, but the dynamic between Claudia and Marcus is what keeps you reading. Here is one man Claudia can't wrap around her little finger. They are sarcastic, and sparky, and reading their interactions is so much fun. I love all the Roman touches, and Marilyn Todd manages to inform you of important attitudes and details without patronising.

In fact, I might have to go re-read this again now...

[Kate · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really liked this book; our hero, the Claudia of the title, was a really great character, and very, very human. I loved the relationship with her husband, and I thought the author managed to get across a lot of the Roman sensibility of the time in a way that didn't stand out as strange or weird, but none the less read very true to me. (I've had *a lot* of background in Roman history, including a lot of Latin translation, and this can and has been a thing to throw me out of historical novels before.)
So, very much recommended on that account.
Some nitpicks, however, were that the way the author used British slang to get across class differences started standing out A LOT about mid-way through the book. You might not find it as distracting as I, a very American reader, did. It was an effective method, but idk, I felt like it got a little over the top at points.
Another is that the love interest's POV on Claudia gets weirdly rapey at points? Like, in a fantasy, never even hinted at acting upon, but that combined with the "if I can't have her no-one will" angle to the murders, it was a little jarring.
That all said, I'm definitely planning on picking up the next book.

[Joanne Fish · Rating 1 out of 5]

Couldn't Finish It

I've read many Roman novels and can forgive some use of modern slang terms but this book was riddled with them. The author, being English, used her vernacular as in calling someone a punter, or using the phrase "leave off" which made it all the more disconcerting for me. This was done multiple times in each chapter. I just couldn't finish the book. I did like the character of Claudia. She was the ancient Scarlett O'Hara and probably would have enjoyed more of her adventures. I did read the ending and that isn't tired up for you. It beckons you read the next book in the series. Disappointing to say the least.

[Heather · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love this series. I suspect (somewhat shamefacedly) that Claudia and I would get along rather well!

She is definitely more ruthless than I am, but I have to admire her dedication to a plan.

Anybody who enjoys books with a strong central female character will enjoy this series. Unless you are easily offended :)

Not yet read the entire series (still looking for a few of the books), but I have enjoyed each one that I have found so far.

[Vicki Cline · Rating 4 out of 5]

Claudia is married to a rich wine maker and her life is very good, except for her gambling problem, which she finances by working as a dominatrix. When some of her clients turn up dead, she's worried she'll be outed. To make matters worse, the man investigating the murders, Marcus Cornelius Orbilio, is very attracted to her, and vice versa. This is the first in an interesting series - it's unusual to have a female protagonist in a Roman mystery.

[Ribblefizz · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent protagonist

Fresh voice, marvelous blend of modern and ancient. Plot was a little bit frayed towards the end, and there were several punctuation issues, but the characters and the mysteries were strong enough to override my (usually strenuous) complaints. Enthusiastically recommended, would recommend the author have one last edit done, though.

[Sandra · Rating 2 out of 5]

Odd mix of god research and jarring modern terminology. I really wanted to like it because hey, female character struggling against one of the ultimate patriarchies... Ancient Rome isn't known for sympathetic personalities, but it's hard to care overmuch about a series of murders when all the characters are so disagreeable.

[Julie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I just could never get into this one, even though I could see why others would find it appealing.

[Arlene Allen · Rating 4 out of 5]

My favorite Roman devious bitch! And I say that with the utmost respoect. :)

[Anubischick · Rating 3 out of 5]

Re-reading, I'd forgotten how annoyingly lecherous Orbilio was in this first book, luckily I know he gets better. Still Claudia is as much of a gem as I remember.

[Shawn Thrasher · Rating 1 out of 5]

Really disappointing.

[Michael · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very good, enjoyed every minute of it!

[Bron · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's been a long time since I read this but I enjoyed it at the time.

[Gemma · Rating 1 out of 5]

Hated the protagonist almost immediately.