In this largely comical adventure story by the author of the Roman Mysteries series, twelve-year-old Alex Papas, who lives in London, is sent back to Roman Britain by the bazillionaire Solomon Daisy, whose “tech guys” have invented a time machine.  Daisy wants Alex to find out the story of a girl whose bones have been discovered by modern archaeologists; Alex isn’t particularly eager to take the trip, but Daisy offers him five million pounds, and as an orphan who is being raised by his grandmother he finds this irresistible.  The principles of time travel are these: “Naked I go and naked I return. Drink, don’t eat. As little interaction as possible.”

Of course, things go wrong from the very first, when Alex discovers that he has been followed into the past by Dinu, a bully from his school who has regularly been demanding his crisps.  We follow the two boys (and two girls they meet in ancient Londinium) through assorted encounters; they attend a gladiatorial game (which Lawrence does not glamorize but describes in repellent terms), experience a Roman bath, visit a graveyard, and time-travel through an ancient Mithraeum (a shrine to the god Mithras).  

Lawrence incorporates actual archaeological discoveries (including the Mithraeum and the girl’s skeleton) into her story.  She also includes words and phrases in Latin: unlike many other child time-travelers from E. Nesbit on, who find themselves magically able to understand the languages of different times and places, Alex must use the Latin he is learning at school, assisted by some acquaintance with ancient Greek. (His family is Greek in origin, and he is bilingual in English and modern Greek.)  -- Deborah Roberts