Did you know...?

The Roman emperor, Flavius Honorius, is the nemesis of our heroine in “After the Fall” – and an actual historical person.  He adored his pet birds, so much so he demanded that his supplicants be present at their feedings.  He is said to have taken great delight afterward, when courtiers knelt before him on carpets foully soiled by his beloved fowl.

Some believe a portrait of the Roman princess, Galla Placidia, has survived to the present day.  Located at the Museo Civico Cristiano in Brescia, the portrait shows the depth of her intelligence and her great soul, the exact opposite of her brother, Honorius!

In our novel, “The Other Side of Heaven,” the hero is Alberto Uzzo, an Italian noble who actually lived in the tenth century.  He was an ancestor of the great Renaissance artist and architect, Michelangelo Buonarroti.

King Henry VIII of England really commanded his master gardener to develop a “thornless rose” to honor his new bride, Katherine Howard.  The strain is now extinct, as dead as Henry's many wives!