The brilliant, Hellenized Etruscan civilisation, which flourished in central Italy before Rome wrested the leading role from her hated rival, has been the subject of both illuminating scholarly research and of mystifying romantic speculation: but the former remains mostly inaccessible to the general reader, while the latter is usually confused and misleading. In her historical novel The Augur's Daughter, Dr Sybille Haynes has succeeded in combining for the first time accurate archaeological knowledge with a carefully controlled imaginative sympathy. The changing fortunes of Larthi, the Augur's daughter and her family reflect the fate of the entire Etruscan nation and in following the vicissitudes of the protagonist's lives, the reader becomes familiar with a sophisticated civilisation which profoundly influenced that of Rome and thus of Europe.