When Perry steps into a crumbling ruin while on holiday in France, he is not expecting to be transported back 1700 years to Roman times. While he hunts desperately for a way home, he must blend in as a slave in a grand villa - even if it means eating mice for dinner! Gradually, Perry is caught up in the fascinating world of Villa Rubia and a life he could never have imagined. But when he makes a new friend, he has a startling realisation. He has seen her name in his own time...engraved on a child's stone coffin. This couldn't really be the same girl, could it? The question burns in Perry's head as he dodges the perils of Roman life. And all the time there is the danger that he will be trapped in the past forever...