| Plot Summary of Household Gods |
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"Nicole Gunther-Perrin is a divorced mom and a lawyer. The day she is denied a partnership she should have gotten, she unwittingly invokes the gods on a votive plaque she purchased on her honeymoon. The gods are real; they respond to Nicole's prayer; she is transported to the body of an ancestress in 2nd Century Pannonia."
Donald Jenner, Resident Scholar
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"A feminist lawyer time travels back to the Roman frontier in the time of Marcus Aurelius. She encounters war, pestilence, birth and death.
Very engrossing and descriptive. Excellent story."
Anne Smittle, Resident Scholar
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"Household Gods
Judith Tarr and Harry Turtledove
Tom Doherty Associates, LLC, 1999, 664 pp.
ISBN: 0-812-56466-9
In Household Gods, Nichole Gunther-Perrin is a single mother juggling the demands of a legal career and child rearing. Her husband, a college professor, has left her for a young graduate assistant. Worse still, an ambitious male associate gets credit for a major report, three quarters of which was done by Nichole, and is offered the partnership she had was hoping to get.
At the end of one, very trying, day, and longing for a simpler life away from the congestion and pollution of Los Angeles, she goes to bed exhausted and discouraged. But when she wakes up she finds herself in Carnuntum, a Roman frontier town in present day Austria, in the year 170 A.D. At first she thought her dream of a new life in a better era had been granted. But she soon learned that second century Carnuntum offered a different but equally challenging life. However, Nichole not only rises to the challenge of life in the second century A.D., but also gains the strength and insight to better deal with twentieth century Los Angeles when she returns at the end of the book.
The time travel is deftly done and the story flows easily from twentieth century Los Angeles to second century Carnuntum and back. The real reward in this book is the opportunity for the reader to "live" through the eyes of Nichole in second century Carnuntum. By the end of the book the reader, like Nichole, not only has a new appreciation for what our era has to offer but also a better understanding of both what life was really like in the outposts of the Roman Empire in the second century and how the people of that era thought and acted ."
Chuck Nugent, Resident Scholar
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| Review Analysis of Household Gods |
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Our unique search engine provides a wealth of detail about books by breaking them down into many different literary elements, all of which are searchable (click here).
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Ratings are on a 1-10 scale (Low to High)
Plot
Composition of Book
Feelings, relationships, character bio/development - 30%
Descript. of society, phenomena (tech), places - 70%
Tone of book
- very upbeat
FANTASY or SCIENCE FICTION?
- science fiction story
Time Travel:
- largely backwards/past
Is this an adult or child's book?
- Adult or Young Adult Book
Time Travel story?
Yes
Cultural problems, alien culture
Yes
Culture clash-
- one human from different culture of other humans
Intense exploration of society's culture?
Yes
Story largely takes place in
- Really long ago
Main Character
Identity:
- Female
Profession/status:
- a lawyer creature
Age:
- 20's-30's
Is this an ordinary person caught up in events?
Yes
How sensitive is this character?
- middling sensitive to others' feelings
Sense of humor
- Mostly serious with occasional humor
Intelligence
- Smarter than most other characters
Physique
- average physique
Main Adversary
Identity:
- none
Setting
Takes place on Earth?
Yes
Style
Person?
- mostly 1st
scientific jargon? (SF only)
- none/very little science jargon needed
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