#BlogTour-‘In Exile’ by Alexandra Turney

About the Book…

”No one in this city has believed in me for two thousand years. I’m unknown and unloved. And I’m very, very ill.” He sighed, and the sound chilled her blood. “Give me your hand.”

Dionysus is re-born in a city which is never named, but which can only be Rome. He doesn’t understand how or why he’s there again – a pagan god in a city where he has no believers.

Weak and disorientated, he’s sleeping rough when he meets fifteen year old Grace; a chance encounter in the streets of the Jewish Ghetto leads to the beginnings of an unconventional relationship. It seems that the god needs Grace more than she needs him, but along with her best friends, Caroline and Sara, she overcomes scepticism and fear to become his worshipper.

This is the beginning of their secret lives – prayers, shrines and “sleepovers” that are actually bacchanals. Their families are suspicious and their schoolwork begins to suffer, but after the first bloodshed, they know that there’s no turning back.

As Dionysus feeds off the energy of his vulnerable new followers, revelling in the chaos and violence of the bacchanals, it becomes clear that he is using the girls as a means to an end. His memories of past incarnations inspire the eventual climax on the Aventine Hill – the night to end his exile.

A cross between ‘The Bacchae’ and ‘The Secret History’, ‘In Exile’is a teenage Greek tragedy set in 20^th century Rome. The novel explores the themes of identity, sexuality, friendship and belief, and is an original study of a powerless, melancholy god living in exile in the Eternal City. It’s also a book for anyone who has ever been enchanted by Rome, a city which, like Dionysus, belongs to the past, waiting uneasily on the threshold of the modern era.

Huge thanks to Anne Cater of Random Things for letting me read ‘In Exile’!

‘The Secret History’ is one of my favourite books and I have a deep and abiding love for classical history so this blog tour invite was perfect!

Awoken by teenage Grace, did she call ,unwittingly, to a god to end the ennui of her mundane life or does he arrive,in the world of men at times of change?

The perspective is totally the reader’s,and remains theirs until the very last page-Grace and her friends eagerly embrace all that Dionysus has to offer as they discover their mental and physical coming of age in modern Rome.

At odds with the world and their families, lost to the world they want to feel important in ,they turn to the bacchanals of wine and transportation to a place they never remember and things they cannot recall doing…except before too long,their adulation is no longer enough and Dionysus demands more…

A thrilling debut, a

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post modern update on the classics as well as a super gripping tale,’In Exile’ has got me yearning to dig out my classical texts!

About the Author…

Alexandra Turney grew up in London and studied English Language and Literature at the University of Oxford. She lives in Rome, where she works as an English teacher and freelance writer. Her specialities include helping Italians to understand the present perfect and writing about alternative tourist attractions in Rome. Almost all of her writing, both fictional and non-fictional, is related to Italy in some way, and has appeared in the Huffington Post, Go Nomad, L’Italo-Americano, Panoram Italia and Urban Travel Blog.

In Exile is her second novel, dreamt up on the metro – “What would happen if Dionysus were re-born in a 20^th century Rome where no one believed in him?” Inspired by Euripides’ The Bacchae, The Secret History by Donna Tartt, and an obscure 19^th century sub-genre of “Greek gods in exile” stories, In Exile tells the story of a melancholy Dionysus and his three teenage followers in Rome.

Alexandra has always been interested in the theme of exile, and the feeling of living in the wrong place or time. Passions for 19^th century literature and post-punk/new wave music of the 1980s mean that she was born at least a couple of decades (if not centuries) too late.

She is currently halfway through writing her third novel, The Living Cult, set in a Purgatory based on Naples.

Alexandra writes about life in Rome and Italian culture on her blog, Go Thou to Rome. You can also follow her on Instagram.